German Food!

German cuisine has a lot of meat in it. Most of the meat consumed consists of Pork, beef, and poultry. Pork is the most popular meat, and chicken is the most popular poultry. The average German consumes about 140lbs of meat each year! Other popular meats are duck, goose, turkey, boar, rabbit, and venison. Lamb and Goat are also eaten, but are not as popular as the others. Meat is typically pot-roasted, and is also very often eaten as sausages. There are over 1500 different types of Wurst (German for sausage) eaten in Germany.

Vegetables are used in stews and soups, but also as side dishes. Commonly used vegetables are carrots, turnips, spinach, peas, beans, broccoli, and different types of cabbage. Meat is commonly served with fried onions. Asparagus, especially spargel (white asparagus) could be served as a main dish, and is also a very common side dish. While not really counted amongst vegetables by the Germans, potatoes are a huge part of German food. They are most often boiled, but are also served fried, mashed, and french-fried (called Pommes, or Pommes Frites)

Egg noodles are commonly used in the southwest: big, thick, spatzle are the most common type, and maultaschen are stuffed noodles, kind of like ravioli. In south Germany, dumplings like knodel are also popular, as well as schupfnudel, which is kind of like gnocci.

Most German food is not spicy, with the exception of mustard for sausages. They generally use the same kind of herbs we are used to here - basil, thyme, black pepper, parsely, chives, etc... In traditional German food, garlic is not used because of the effect of nasty-smelling breath. Recently, it has become more popular because of the influence of other nations' cuisine. Mustard is very common, and so is horseradish, used as a condiment like mustard, or in a paste, or even mixed with mustard!

There is a wide variety of cakes and tarts, but most utilize fresh fruit. In cakes, apples, plums, strawberries, and cherries are the most popular. Cheesecake is also really popular, and it sometimes is make with Quark, which is this really good creamy, yoghurty, sweet dessert that they also have in Amsterdam (where I used to live) made from Quark (cheese). A well known type of cake is Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, which is made of cherries. Berliner, Kreppel, and Krapfen are German doughnuts; balls of yeasty dough filled with jam and other things. There are crepe-like Eierkuchen, usually served with syrup, jam, or powdered sugar. They can also be served with meat and/or cheese as main dishes. In Northern Germany, red fruit pudding (Rote Grutze) is very popular and made with currents, cherries, strawberries, and raspberries. It can be served with cream on top. Variations, like rhubarb pudding (Rhabarbergrutze), and gooseberry pudding (Grune Grutze) are also popular. Ice cream is also popular.

Bread is also used a lot in german food - but not usually as a side to a main meal. There are about 600 types of bread, and 1,200 types of pastries eaten in Germany. It's so important that the German words for dinner and snack (Abendbrot and Brotzeit) mean "evening bread" and "bread time." German bread is generally more varied than Western bread - there are so many different types, and most of them are popular. The ten most popular breads are (source: Wikipedia):
1)Rye-wheat
2)Toast bread
3)Whole-grain
4)Wheat-rye
5)White bread
6)Multi-grain
7)Rye
8)Sunflower seed
9)Pumpkin seed
10)Onion bread

Beer is very popular in Germany, only we're underage so I won't go into that...

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_food

Clarissa