It's All About the Food

"Not Italian?!"

Once, my mother asked me, "what's your favorite cuisine?"

"German," I said, leaving "isn't it obvious" unsaid but understood.

"Not Italian?!" She was astounded.

"They don't have Spätzle," I said.

I was just as astounded that my mother, whose parents were off-the-boat (and a real boat at that) German, would like Italian as her favorite cuisine. Perhaps because she grew up eating German food every day, like I grew up eating American food, and well, no, because cheesesteaks are the reason I'm not a vegetarian. (I love cheesesteaks so much that I eat so fast as to give myself the hiccups.) (And yes, really, it was the thought of giving up cheesesteaks that turned me from vegetarianism.)

My mother's preference for Italian food is just inexplicable. Where are the fasnacht? The spätzle? The leberkäse? (Mom's reaction, "You like Leberkäse? Since when?")

I'm reading Mark Vetri's cookbook, il viaggio di vetri. Having bought five vintage German cookbooks and cooking magazines today, it's impossible not to compare Vetri's operatic work with the workaday cookbooks. Food culture is not something once a month in a fancy restaurant; it's what people eat every day.

Surely it's an unfair comparison. Vetri is not only a restauranteur, he's one of the best in the country. His namesake restaurant, Vetri, is up for a Beard award this year, and Osteria was a semi-finalist. Restaurant cooking dösn't translate well to the home. Restaurant cookbooks give me the same feeling as high fashion — lovely, but it will never make it into my day-to-day.

On the other hand, three of my get-it-on-the-table dinners are classic Italian pasta dishes: penne a la vodka, penne puttanesca, and spaghetti carbonara. My German go-to dinners are Käsespätzle, lentil soup and Spätzle, sausages with good bread, cold cuts (this is the traditional German supper; Germans have a big meal at lunch), and pancake soup (less weird if you eat French toast for dinner too).

Perhaps it's the American interest in savories when considering cuisine versus my own interest in baked sweets, and Germans have a lot of interest in baking. The recent Culinaria Germany said it was the land of 300 breads; I simply say the Germans never forgot that a chewy, whole-grain bread is a damn sight tastier than something that can be compressed into a ball. Germans start and end the day with bread-based meals (although our current German exchange student eats cereal for breakfast here and at home). Often they throw in an extra meal to get a slice of cake; it happens at 3 p.m. and is called "coffee," but the cake is the star. Glorious cakes, with fruit or cheese or cream or chocolate or nuts and every combination thereof, with sides of freshly whipped cream, tortes and kuchen and biskuit and rolladen. Light, fruity cakes in summer, rich and heavy cakes when it's cold. Whatever fruit is in season makes an appearance at coffee.

Christmas is a baker's heaven. Not just the country, but each region has its own special cookies, which may be unknown elsewhere in Germany. Home bakers might specialize not only in Christmas cookies, but in a particular Christmas cookie, like women who make three or four kinds of delicious Lebkuchen. The baked specialties also include breads with nuts or dried fruit, like Stollen and Hutzelbrot.

As far as Italian cuisine in America is concerned, baking starts with cannoli, runs through biscotti and ends with tiramisu, with a quick detour into focaccia. This is as accurate a picture of Italy as Black Forest cherry cake is representative of Germany (never seen it there). One of Nick Malgieri's many fantastic books is Italian Desserts, with dozens of recipes. Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Babbo, is up for a James Beard award for her book, Dolce Italiano. But. I've delighted in the nuances of German bakeries and Konditereis for 30 years; how could I not prefer that over a half-hearted tiramisu or gloppy cannoli found at "Italian" chain restaurants? (America needs a German chain restaurant: Schnitzel Schnak, anyone?)

Germany has the most misunderstood food culture (and I've always loved an underdog). German specialties will often be passed off as Alsation (a region that has been switched between German and French rule for centuries) or Swiss; Spätzle usually gets this treatment. As much as Americans love their starches and fatty meats, they seem put off by the stereotypical German wurst. In reality, German food is great bread and cakes, salads of seasonal vegetables (often home grown), flavorful cheese and butter, wild game, and fresh fruit or excellent preserves.

German food is at once familiar to me and exotic. It doesn't hurt that our German friends and family are excellent cooks, with their own gardens, living near excellent butchers and bakers. It is the comfort food from my childhood or a dish I've never seen before.