Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Bavarian Cuisine a La Munchen

Our first night in Munich(Munchen to the natives) we stayed with Stella and Joerg a wonderful native Munchen couple we met through Couchsurfing.org. I mentioned that I hadn't had any true Bavarian food since I have been in Germany(Deutschland to the natives.) So they took us out to a fabulous dinner at Fraunhofer restaurant.


Jess had a roasted pork shoulder with bread dumplings that was dripping in a velvety fantastic gravy. She thought the meat was a little dry but when you keep it well dunked in the pan sauce it turned into a fabulous luxurious meal. The bread dumpling was moist, and very flavorful. It had lot of herb and spices with just enough egg to hold it together. Dunked into the gravy it had me wanting to switch plates with her.

I had the wiener schnitzel(Weiner art) I was told this means it's a Vienna style weiner schnitzel, which means instead of the usual well softened peice of veal instead they used pork cutlets well breaded and pan fried. They were very well done with a little bit of lemon squeezed on top. When I was a kid my mom would make this style of wiener schnitzel and I would eat it dipped into blue cheese dressing.(for some reason they didn't serve blue cheese dressing here)* It had a really fabulous potato salad on the side. Perfectly cooked potatoes with still just a tiny bit of bite like al dente pasta, lathered in a creamy vinegary dressing. I was very well pleased.

I wish I had the chutzpah to take a picture of the meal that Stella had. She ordered pigs lung with bread dumplings. LUNG! The last great adventure for me! I have eaten pretty much every part of the animal, I love stomach, intestines, kidneys, liver, heart, skin, marrow, pig ears, feet, etc etc etc. but I have never heard of anyone making lungs, the membranous almost plastic-like organ into something edible! Her dish looked like finely chopped liver in a very thick soup. I was instantly jealous and ashamed of my silly weiner schnitzel, I could have ordered lung if I had only known German(Deutsch to the natives)

The way it's prepared leaves the final result quite sour but incredibly moist, and soft almost the texture of well prepared liver. The taste isn't organ-y at all but rather sour and a smooth texture that pairs well with the bread dumplings. I don't know a single other culture that has made the lungs into something edible. Simply amazing.

If I go back to Bavaria I am having the lung... And maybe some mark dumplings(Marrow dumpling) I couldn't find any while I was there, and that just sounds too amazing to pass up.


*For one it's not very traditional, and for two, I would have been too embarrassed to ask, let alone eat it that way

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