International Food Tools – Germany
Video Transcription
Jackie Keller: Welcome to Food Exposed and our international cooking
series. I’ve been fortunate over the years to have visited many, many
different countries, and to travel the world. I’ve studied in
different countries on different continents, and I’ve been in a
million food stores, cooking stores, and little shops everywhere, and
I never get tired looking for unique, different food tools. It’s
amazing what you can find. And in Germany, the culture has long been
associated with food. Just remember the fairytale Hansel and Gretel
and the gingerbread house. But today when you think of German food,
what’s the first thing that comes to mind, all right, besides
Octoberfest? Now, you got it.
The different regions of the country have very different and distinct
styles of cooking. And there are many staples of German cuisine that
are found throughout the country, everywhere you go, like sausage, and
cold cuts, and seasonal vegetables, and white asparagus, which is keen
during the season; it’s on every table and every restaurant. But
styles of cooking have changed over the past 50 years in Germany.
Lighter mid-day meals are more common and more often the heavy meats,
the game, the pork, the things that are traditionally associated with
German cooking are less dominate. Mustard is always popular, and there
is a huge variety of mustards served on every table, and horseradish
is also commonly used as a condiment.
Joining me today on Food Exposed is Inga Rouse [SP], a Munich-born
citizen of the world. Inga has spent the last 34 years living in six
different countries with her great husband and her two fabulous sons.
She’s here for a short yearly visit from her magnificent 120 year old
home on the Rivers end, just outside of Paris, Inga, welcome to Food
Exposed.
Inga: Thank you for having me.
Jackie Keller: Thank you for joining me. Today we are going to make
something I think that’s sort of Nouvelle German, so preparing
vegetables, I think no matter where you are, it’s one of the hardest
parts of cooking. It’s one of the most time consuming, one of the most
burdensome, and I was so excited when you introduced me to this German
food tool called Spirelli. And it’s a spiral food cutter, that simple.
So it’s made by this company, GEFU, that makes these German food
tools. And today, we’re going to show our guests what we can do with
it. Are you ready?
Inga: I’m ready, yeah.
Jackie Keller: All right. I’ll let you be the Spirelli master.
Inga: The Spirelli master, okay.
Jackie Keller: And while you’re doing that I’ll whip up a little
dressing for our salad.
Inga: All right. Would you mind if I [inaudible 03:11]
Jackie Keller: Please. Spirelli away.
Inga: So this is how it works, it’s really easy.
Jackie Keller: Oh, look at that. That’s so pretty. They look like
noodles.
Inga: Like spaghetti.
Jackie Keller: That’s the whole point, right?
Inga: Right.
Jackie Keller: Wow. It doesn’t take much, huh?
Inga: No. It doesn’t.
Jackie Keller: Beautiful. So you’re starting with zucchini. And
zucchini, you find that in a German salad?
Inga: Yeah, nowadays, yes.
Jackie Keller: Tell me about Germans and German home gardens and that
whole movement?
Inga: Well now, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? It’s so colorful. If ever
possible, locals would grow their own salads, vegetables, and herbs.
My uncle who lives in Eunuch, even drives to a farm to make sure to
get well-fed and naturally raised chickens and cattle meat from
chickens. While he is out there, he gets his farm eggs; so things have
been rediscovered, old things.
Jackie Keller: And what about the vegetables? Now you’ve got these
beautiful carrots. So we’ve got probably a good amount of that to
bring some color to it. What other vegetables might you find in a
salad like this?
Inga: Well, always of course, the green leafy vegetables like Romaine. But
also, long-forgotten treasures like sugar-leaf salad for instance,
buttercup; there are many varieties. Asparagus you might find in
salads as well.
Jackie Keller: But with the Spirelli cutter?
Inga: The Spirelli cutter, turnips work nicely. And by the way, there is a
typical old, very old forgotten turnip which is [inaudible 05:16]
gourmet food that’s called [inaudible 05:20] turnip. And this you can
Spirelli away, too.
Jackie Keller: Well, you know, I’m going to make a very simple with
this, because I would guess that you don’t get too elaborate. And I
see we brought along some sun-dried tomatoes, so shall we put that in
as well for some color and some rich flavor?
Inga: That would be absolutely great.
Jackie Keller: And we have some sun-dried tomatoes packed in a little
olive oil. And it doesn’t take much to get that flavor. Shall we use
some of that olive oil flavor for our dressing as well?
Inga: Mm-hmm, and the radish.
Jackie Keller: Oh, look at that, it’s so pretty. Now what time of day
might Germans be having a salad like this?
Inga: Probably for lunch.
Jackie Keller: Lunch is the mid-day meal there?
Inga: Yes.
Jackie Keller: Yeah. So I’ve got some salt, a little bit of fresh
cracked pepper, and we’ve got some white balsamic vinegar here. I’ll
put that in, and I brought some fresh basil. That is so pretty.
Inga: I think that’s enough for showing.
Jackie Keller: Right. Do you want to pair some fresh basil leaves into
that? And I’ll whip together this with a little bit of more olive oil,
and what about protein? Protein here in the States, everybody is crazy
about protein. Everybody has to have protein in everything. We’re
eating a lot of protein these days. I brought some Mozzarella cheese.
What else might you find in this typically German kitchen?
Inga: In the typical German kitchen? Well, chicken for protein.
Jackie Keller: I know German cuisine, there is a lot of different
sausages.
Inga: A lot of, that’s true, yeah. Sausages, however, very often are not
so very healthy.
Jackie Keller: All right. So we have a little dressing here to go on our
salad. And let’s just pour a little bit on. I don’t want to overdress
it.
Inga: Right.
Jackie Keller: Just lightly drizzle, and…
Inga: That looks wonderful.
Jackie Keller: Here we go.
Inga: Thank you.
Jackie Keller: There you go. That is so pretty.
Inga: It’s pretty.
Jackie Keller: It’s very pretty. Now this is noodle salad, but there are
no noodles.
Inga: No noodles.
Jackie Keller: So in German, what would you call this?
Inga: [inaudible 08:05].
Jackie Keller: It’s a [inaudible 08:08]. All right, well, let’s taste
this [inaudible 08:15] salad, shall we?
Inga: Okay.
Jackie Keller: All right. So look at that. It’s so nice. Just like
spaghetti.
Inga: Exactly.
Jackie Keller: That’s fun. Are you going to be brave enough to try to
taste this thing?
Inga: Oh yes. It smells wonderful.
Jackie Keller: All right. You’re going to have to get a little cheese in
there, a little couple of cubes of mozzarella. All right, let me know.
So this could be a light lunch?
Inga: A light lunch, but for dinner as well. It’s really so versatile.
Jackie Keller: All right. How did we do? Oh, you are so delicate.
Inga: It’s delicious.
Jackie Keller: Good.
Inga: It’s really nice.
Jackie Keller: Great. [inaudible 09:05]
Inga: [inaudible 09:06]
Jackie Keller: Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I
hope you’ll join me again for some more international food tools. And
for this recipe, you can visit our website. You can come to Food
Exposed, and find the recipe and more tips about German cooking and
German foods. And of course, we hope you’ll tune into another segment
of our international food tools series, where we explore what’s on
your plate. For more Food Exposed, check me out on empowerme.tv. And
until next week, remember make food your best friend and exercise your
companion for life.