Third Sunday in Advent--Adventmarkt food & drink

A little music to accompany this post on some of the wonders of Christmas market food.

I like to eat.  I like Christmastime.  So I am devoting a whole post to eating at the Advent markets that are so popular here.  There is lots of food and drink to be had at the markets: Stollen, Glühwein, sugar-roasted almonds, hot chocolate, Bratäpfeln, waffles and crepes with whipped cream or applesauce or fruit compote or hazelnut chocolate, Kinderpunsch (fruit tea with juice),  echter Tharandter Würsten mit Senf* (and Ketchup?!?), fresh meats and sausages, and large frosted gingerbread cookies on ribbon to hang around a child’s neck.

We'll start with the Striezelmarkt, which I described in an earlier post.  On the Saturday of the second weekend in Advent every year, a big procession through the Altstadt delivers the eponymous Stollen.  And this isn't just any loaf of Christmas bread: it's enormous.  That link has pictures that show how 30 workers combined more than 300 sheets of Stollen to look like one huge, powdered sugar-covered loaf.  It weighed 4 metric tons (8818.4 lbs) and used 1540 pounds of flour, 1433 pounds of raisins, 772 pounds of butter, 265 pounds of sugar, 375 pounds of almonds, 330 pounds of candied lemon peel, and a jug of Jamaica rum.  This year's loaf was just over 10 feet long, almost 6 feet wide, and almost 3 feet high.  They used a five-foot knife to cut it into pieces to sell after the parade.

Aside:  I didn't get any of the official Stollen, but as it was my turn to bring the munchies for coffee time after the church service, yesterday I borrowed the kitchen  of some very generous friends here in town, to attempt to bake a loaf myself.  Due to the formidable list of ingredients and the touchy nature of yeast breads, it is something of a feat.  The last time I made a yeast bread, I think killed the little beasties with too-hot water.  This time, they bubbled happily in their warm sugar-water.  Unfortunately, I added too much milk, so the dough turned out VeRy sTIckY. I probably added another cup of flour while trying to attain the consistency I remembered from having baked Christmas bread with my mother.  However, there was little risk of the dough becoming too tough, as I hadn't measured the filling, either (what's the use in saving partial packages of candied cherries and lemon peel?) and so had plenty of raisin-almond-candied-fruit-mix to go with the extra flour.  To my great delight, the bread rose beautifully on the radiator.  Then I had a fight with the oven, which I had been warned was cantankerous.  To make a very long story short, I had to take the bread out early because it was starting to burn.  After trimming the loaf, dusting it with powdered sugar, and letting it cool, I had to cut it to make it fit the the Tupperware, whereupon I discovered that the bottom and insides were still doughy!  So I reheated the oven, cut the loaf in half and brushed off the extra sugar for a second stint in the oven.  After cutting off the melted/burning sugar and dusting again, at last I had two edible loaves (powdered sugar improves  pretty much everything it touches).  The first loaf at least got good reviews, and next time I will have gotten the hang of it.

All that bother is why you can buy some tricky-to-make treats at the markets, like Bratäpfeln.  There are lots of ways to enjoy a baked apple, as the video above attests, but the one I had at the Striezelmarkt had been cored and baked with sugar and cinnamon in the middle and was served with a vanilla sauce.  Amazingly it wasn't too sweet.  My roommate has some loose Bratapfel tea mix, which is fantastic.  I think it's the cinnamon that does the trick.



I also bought a Pflaumentoffel, a figure made out of prunes that represents a chimney sweep and is supposed to bring good luck.  The people from whom I bought my figure were wearing puffy black winter coats and had large metallic collars on, like the Pflaumentoffel do.  I surely hope those were the proprietors, because it is cruel and unusual to subject one’s employees to such treatment!  I like dried plums, so I will actually eat it (not all at once, of course!).

Each Christmas market I have visited has its own character.  I have already mentioned the touristy nature of the Christkindlmarkt in Salzburg and the Erzgebirgische winter wonderland of decorated stalls at Dresden's Striezelmarkt.  I attended the Loschwitz-Elbhang Weihnachtsmarkt on the Saturday afternoon of its opening.  It was packed!  This market consists of stalls in a narrow courtyard in front of some shops, and then another ring of stalls across the street.  It is obvious that most of the vendors are local and produce what they are selling: wooden toys and figures, ceramic bowls, knitted finger puppets, felt hair accessories, stained glass decorations, and of course the requisite stall of socks.  The food offerings include roasted sugared almonds, Quarkbällchen, Bratwürst, and Pfefferkuchen (gingerbread).

At this market, I tried a Hefeklöße with sugar-butter and Heidelbeeren sauce.  I didn't really like it, although when the proprietor stopped by my table as I was finishing to ask, Hat es geschmeckt? ("Did it taste good?"), I told him it had.  A Klöße is a dumpling, and the one I ate tasted underdone.  I hear that may be on account of the way dumplings are cooked (dumped in a pot of boiling water), especially since this was a sizable dumpling.  The next week I went back for Quarkbällchen, which are powdered-sugar-covered deep-fried nuggets of deliciousness, also known as home-made donuts.

A few days later, a friend and I had a little time before Bible Study started, so we wandered through the Mittelalterlicher Markt am Stallhof.  It wasn’t as big as I had expected, but they go all-out with the theme: there are crest-flags hanging from the arches, the signs on the stalls use old-fashioned words, and the vendors are wearing variations on brown and green sacks.  There are a few gift stalls, and at one you can even purchase reproduction armor!  But the main purpose of this market (like the the one on Postplatz with the wattle-and-daub restrooms in the construction trailer, below) could be summed up as Ye Olde Outdore Meade Taverne.

Hopefully I'm not done with my tasting adventures.  I would still like to try a waffle and maybe the requisite Glühwein.  Also another bag of Quarkbällchen.  You know, for quality control.

*--"original sausage from the Tharandter Forest (southwest of Dresden) with mustard"—a long sausage served on a short crusty roll; ketchup is an American "improvement" on something that doesn't need improving!

[Ed. note--I have been assured that all the food and drink mentioned here was consumed purely in the interest of furthering the author's research aims.]