Threats of Zwiebelkuchen from the Dorf

The flirty spoon-girl on the cover of the German Village Cook Book (The German Village Society, June 1968) is here to try to sell readers on the idea that German food is delicious and fun. Americans lately seem to be disagreeing with this notion, and despite/ because of? my (distant) German background I would tend to agree.

That's partly because I think my sour receptors seem to have waaay different settings from most people's (Most vinegar-based condiments taste barfy to me, for example.), and German food tends to go heavy on the sour. Even the smell of sauerkraut makes me suppress a gag reflex, and the book informed me that cabbage isn't the only vegetable Germans will krautify.

There's turnip kraut, too! Apparently this version is supposed to used as a topping for salty crackers rather than as a the primary ingredient in a hot tub for sausages, as is traditional for the cabbage-based version.

Of course, too much flavor can be just as much of a problem as not enough. I found a recipe very similar to something my mom used to make-- one of the recipes that led me to take over the family cooking during my teenage years as an act of self-defense.

I know she didn't make it exactly this way. I doubt anything was measured-- she just used what we had on hand and boiled the ham, green beans, and potatoes in plain water (I don't think she even bothered with the pepper or staggered cooking times) until everything was uniformly bland, mushy, and gray. Let's hear it for mom's good old home cooking!

The recipes aren't all horror, though. I was impressed to find eggs prepared in a way I hadn't seen before.

Okay, I've definitely seen baked eggs before, but usually they're just eggs broken into a ramekin or muffin cup, topped with some seasonings and maybe a little cheese, and then baked. I'd never seen hard boiled eggs chopped up to be baked under a layer of eggs beaten with seasoning then topped with breadcrumbs and cheese. Eggs baked under other eggs is just odd enough to make me kind of love it.

And then, I hit the cake section and immediately reverted to horror when I saw a new kind of vegetable-based cake. To be clear, I'm not necessarily anti-veggie in dessert. Carrot cake is lovely. Asparagus cake and artichoke cake sound weird, but I might try them if somebody else went to the trouble of making them. Canned tomato products were such a common dessert ingredient that somebody must like that combination.

You might be expecting sauerkraut cake here, as that's pretty common too (and krauty!), but nope. Are you ready for Zwiebelkuchen?

Well, threatening to start someone's day with an onion-topped coffeecake is one way to get the house cleared in record time. Those Germans are hard-liners!

This book reaffirmed my sense that I'm not missing out by being largely ignorant of my family's long-ago German roots, but it does kind of make me wish my spoons would give me a saucy wink now and then.