La Saison d'Asperge: Black Forest Edition

One Saturday in early May, Theresa, Gabi, and I went for a drive into Germany to check out cuckoo clocks in the Black Forest. Along the way, we stopped for lunch near the village of Gutach at a roadside Gasthoff.

The waitress did not speak much English and was having trouble explaining why she brought two different menus. One "normal"and one "spargel". A very nice German lady who spoke perfect English came up and told us that the second menu was for the "spargel", or asparagus season. Seems that the white asparagus is enjoyed on both sides of the river.

Our English-speaking-angel walked us through the menu and explained the different choices. One of the things she highly recommended was the "Bärlauch Suppe". She couldn't translate it...but described it as "a soup made from a little plant that grows wild in the forest on the mountains and is only found during this time of year and it tastes like garlic only not as strong and better." With an explanation like that, how could anyone pass it by?

Turns out the little plant is Bear's Garlic, which I had never heard of before. The German word - Bärlauch - is a literal translation. In French it is the same - l'ail des ours. There were about three weeks that we could find it in the farmer's markets and then it disappeared. Again, if you mentioned it to the locals their eyes would glaze over and they would give you 10 different recipes for it; from soup to pasta to steak.

Anyway, in the little gasthoff near Gutach the asparagus was excellent and served with either a hollandaise sauce or garlic butter. Instead of ham, the menu offered schnitzel or beef or salmon to accompany it. I had the pork schnitzel. This was very good. With the bärlauch suppe, I thought it could get no better.

Then came dessert. What else to have in the Black Forest but the Schwartzwalderkirschtorte....Black Forest Cake. The opening picture shows a slice of heaven. Dark chocolate cake, spiked with cherry brandy and cherry preserves, and then sandwiched between layers of whipped cream. I drool now whenever I think of it.

Two final comments:

First, the word "schwartzwalderkirschtorte" is an example of the German ability to make a hideously long word by gluing several other words together. I will never understand German. I weep when I hear it spoken.

Second, the cherries in this cake remind me of the sour cherries from the tree near the chicken coop on Grandma Weber's farm many years ago. Not Bing cherries but the tart kind that wake up your taste buds and make your toes curl. There are huge orchards of these cherry trees near Oberkirch, just East of Strasbourg. In springtime, the blooms go on for kilometers. Later in the summer, these blooms become cherries that end up in preserves or, more likely, in cherry wine. Much of that wine is fermented and distilled to make cherry brandy. (a.k.a. kirschwasser or kirsch schnapps).

Kirsch is the quintessential drink of the Black Forest in Germany and also of the Vosges mountains in France. They say that the woodcutters used to drink a tall glass of kirsch schnapps for breakfast each morning before going out to work all day in the winter cold. And I believe this is true because people have told me of memories of their fathers and grandfathers doing such things. In this day and age, one can't exactly pound down a double-cocktail before work in the morning. Me, I'd settle for a slice of the Black Forest Cake to start each day.