I need a bit of rough!

 

Well, actually, that should read: ruff. But how else does one get traffic to the site? (Hmm, even 'traffic', when translated into German, can have sexual undertones, if one is so inclined..., but I digress...).

On the last day of April, a Pagan festival known as Walpurgisnacht, is still traditionally celebrated all over Germany, as Tanz in den Mai, and with the month of May comes Maibowle. May Wine or May Punch contains a magic ingredient, a herb called woodruff,  or to give it its German name: Waldmeister - Master of the Woods.  

I  have woodruff flavoured jelly powder and even woodruff flavoured syrup, but the traditional mix for Maibowle would be 2 litres of dry white wine to 1 litre of sparkling wine (or mineral water), with the bunch of previously dried or frozen Waldmeister suspended into the liquid so that the  stems don't touch the wine. On Wikipedia, under the heading May Wine, it is said that the plant is slightly poisonous, so caution is advised - no more than 5 plants per litre of punch. Which is all very well, if only I had ANY, but alas woodruff doesn't seem to be native to Britain.

  

So I checked out the German recipes online, to find out whether anyone has tried using the syrup. And lo and behold, they have! What can I tell you? I saw the most curious recipes.

1.

750 ml lemonade (woodruff flavour)

1 bottle of sparkling wine

1 bottle of white wine

1/2 bottle of Schnaps (wheat)

2.

3 l of white wine

1/2 l of red wine

125 g honey

woodruff

3.

white wine

sparkling wine

woodruff

mint

lemon balm

2 slices of lemon

4.

1 bottle of sparkling wine

250ml of vodka

800ml mineral water

200ml woodruff syrup

600 g stawberries

And another one, admittedly called East Prussian May Punch, does not contain any woodruff, but red wine, sparkling wine, dark beer and arrak! Which reminded me of the Altbierbowle which was popular in Germany in the early 80s. Now that I've brought my parents' big punch bowl upstairs from the cellar, I think I'll do that for the next book party at my house... But I'm digressing again.

I ended up with a mixture of the above: 200 ml of the syrup, topped up to 800ml with mineral water, 1 bottle of white wine, 1 bottle of cava, a few strawberries, 2 slices of lemon, some mint, and then I made the fatal mistake of adding a bit of rum. I don't think it needs any spirit - but if one feels there should be some, then it is definitely advisable to use a clear one with little own flavour!

It certainly does work with the syrup - in fact, just the syrup and wine and mineral water would make it very similar to the one you can buy ready made in bottles, in Germany that is. So, no good at all here, and I haven't seen any syrup here either. Sometimes Lidl sell the jelly powder, and I must give it a go - I'll report back.

Ideally, I'd grow my own woodruff. I know that some people have done it, and use it in interesting recipes, such as woodruff flavoured panna cotta with a strawberry jus. Sounds and looks divine.

Apparently, strawberries marinated in woodruff until they turn into clear red juice make a  fantastic dessert soup - probably a strange concept on this green little island. Kaltschale is not that unusual as a pudding in Germany, nor would it be in Scandinavia or Holland, I daresay. I can't talk for the French, but I do know that they call  woodruff "aspérule odorante" or "reine des bois",  Queen of the Wood. Whereas the Dutch refer to the haybed of Maria: 'Onze Lieve Vrouwe Bedstro'.(I do not recall where I found these bits of information...sorry).

RIP Keith Floyd

Choucroute d'Alsace

I wonder how many of my fellow food bloggers in the UK felt the urge to cook something special last night in memory of Keith Floyd, the incorrigible cook and TV presenter, who had died the night before. It was a particular shock as on that very night, the BBC had broadcast a programme about him. I couldn't help wondering whether watching it had given him the heart attack - Floyd had looked frail enough during the filming, and I don't think the Keith Allen led documentary did him any favours.

Let's rather remember his larger than life exuberance, his lack of reverence, and the abundance and abandon he brought to British cooking. I got out Floyd on France, cracked open a bottle of wine, and Choucroute d'Alsace is what I ended up with.

"Trust you to hone in on a region the Germans invaded", was Mr ALOMP's reaction to the rather Teutonic, meat and Sauerkraut dominated dish. Hmm, yes, apparently due to domestic pulling powers, such as 'what do I actually have in?' (I'm German, so I always have Sauerkraut in) and 'what needs to be used up?' (smoked ham, smoked sausage - both Polish, but then, so were the ancestors if you go back far enough), I had to forego Floyd's maxims "careful shopping" and "fresh ingredients", and decided on an approximation of the dish featured on page 227. But maybe there was more to it? Maybe all that talk of good, honest, hearty home cooking had me salivating for childhood fare? (Come to think of it - at the Malmö Food Festival, of all the international dishes I could have gone for, I had plumped for Bigos - the Sauerkraut based Polish Classic, interestingly sometimes referred to as Silesian Bigos, Silesia being the area my Mum is from.)

In any case, it had made me block out the fact that neither of my remaining men (D eventually off to explore the Capital of the fatherland, or rather, in our case, the motherland) like Sauerkraut, a fact which wasn't helped by the only one of Floyd's maxims I adhered to - "an unhurried approach" - which resulted in the food being served very late. They ate it all but they didn't love it. Whereas I have to admit, I did. In rather colloquial German, "Ich hätte mich da reinsetzen können" - roughly translated, "I could have settled in it".

Oh yes, there was plenty of Riesling in the Sauerkraut and I also made Poires au vin rouge (p 33). Needless to say copious amounts of red and white were also imbibed. Ah, no one quite like Keith Floyd! I very much hope that he ended as he did in the epilogue of Floyd on France:

"And me? I am sitting - another fallen star - waiting for the early train. But happy."

Kraut Rocks!

Krautwickel mit Kichererbsen
(Cabbage Leaves Stuffed with Giggly Peas)
for Bloggeraid

It has bothered me for quite some time that here we are, blogging away in foodieland,not just feeding ourselves and families (too much in my case), but arranging food, photographing it, celebrating it as an art form, and virtually sharing it and our food-related verbosity, when out there – in the real world – people are still dying of starvation. According to Wikipedia, there was an increase of 80 million since 1990, despite the fact that the world already produces enough food to feed everyone - 6 billion people - and could feed double . Every second, 1 person dies as a result of hunger, which accounts for a staggering 58 % of all deaths. Every 5 seconds, 1 child dies as a result of hunger - 60% of all child deaths.

(I'll let you digest that for a moment)

So, I was more than pleased when I stumbled over an organisation called Bloggeraid.

This international group of food bloggers - the brainchild of Ivy, Val and Giz - is trying to address the problem of World Famine by raising awareness as well as money throughout the food communities and beyond. One of the ways to achieve their mission of "helping to make a change in a world where starvation affects such a profound number of people" is to publish a cookbook, the entire profits of which will be directed to the School Meals programme of the World Food Programme (WFP - the UN's front line agency).The School Meals programme does not just target the issue of famine, it simultaneously addresses poor school attendance. How? The chance of at least one meal per day will, it is hoped, motivate parents to send their children to school, rather than keep them at home to work. Girls in particular are often relied upon to look after younger siblings and thus denied a chance to obtain an education. The "take-home ration" - for instance a sack of rice or a can of cooking oil - which the pupil can take home for the family, benefits particularly such girls. Programmes such as this one can double the attendance in Primary Schools in the poorest countries in the world.

What an absolutely marvellous campaign to be involved in! Ivy, Val and Giz have been extremely busy collecting fellow bloggers' recipes since January, in order to have the Bloggeraid cookbook for sale at Amazon by November/December 2009. Today is the deadline, so let's see, why I have chosen cabbage for my recipe.

Well, the call was for an original recipe, maybe inspired by your home country. I am originally from Germany, and what could be more fitting than something made from 'Kraut', i.e. cabbage? Stuffed Cabbage Leaves are very traditional, typically served at home, or, if you're lucky, at lunchtime (the usual time for a hot meal in Germany) as one of the hearty dishes on the specials menu of a pub or restaurant. However, this is normally a meat dish, and I had long wanted to create a vegetarian version, in particular one where the stuffing did not include rice, which The Boy does not eat.

So, this was the outcome:

The stuffing

... made from chickpeas and mushrooms. The irony being: he doesn’t eat mushrooms either, and isn’t too fond of chick peas (not even the translation to “giggly peas” made him feel more inclined towards them).

The 'olives'/'roulades'/'parcels'

Unaware of the ingredients (oh, you have to be so crafty with teenagers sometimes...), he rated them as ‘very good’, something I have never achieved with a Vegetarian dish before!

This is all I am going to say about the recipe at this point. If you want to know exactly how it is done, you will have to wait for the cook book.

PS: Thank you to Angela who reminded me only recently that chickpeas are funny in German, on Lola's site.