German Language Blog

Christmas tree in Charlottenburg, Berlin, 12-2011

Although snow hasn’t reached Berlin yet, when you are out in the city you cannot miss that it’s Christmas time. People may have decorated the trees in their front yards with Christmas balls or electric lights.
The city itself has also done some spectacular decoration with the help of its electricity supplier: The linden trees along the boulevard Unter den Linden are illuminated by 80 km (50 mi) of electric lights.

A different kind of Christmas trees - Unter den Linden illuminated. CC-BY Jule_Berlin @ Flickr

But back to Berlin! This week I visited the Christmas market at Gendarmenmarkt. Gendarmenmarkt is a square in the center of Berlin, famous for its two cathedrals, the French and the German one, as well as the Konzerthaus. I like this market for its diversity. There are a lot of food stalls which sell typical German Christmas food like Lebkuchen (ginger bread), Marzipan (almond paste) and Bratwurst, but also many many arts and crafts stalls that offer Christmas decorations and unique handmade gifts.

And of course my friends and I couldn’t go without having Glühwein (mulled wine)! Many Germans just go to Christmas markets in order to enjoy this seasonal drink. Glühwein is usually prepared from red wine, which is heated and spiced with cinnamon, clove, lemon zest and star anise. Delicious!

• Have you ever been to a Christmas market? Was that in Germany or elsewhere? How did you like it?
• Do you like Glühwein as much as I do? What is your favorite food / drink of the Christmas season?

Welcome to the Christmas market WeihnachtsZauber ("ChristmasMagic") at Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin, 12-2011

This stall sells illuminated Christmas stars, Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin, 12-2011

Wooden Christmas pyramids - "please do not touch!", Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin, 12-2011

Grünkohl (kale) is a very popular dish for the Adventszeit (Advent Season) and Weihnachten (Christmas) in Germany. And I also like it very much. It is one of my favorite dishes. As someone of you asked how to prepare it, I’d like to address myself to this topic.

First of all, you need to know that there are different varieties of it. That is, the recipes differ from region to region. Thus, I can only tell you how my grandmother and mother cook this meal.

In order to make Grünkohl you need, of course, kale, which is available as leaves (fresh kale), tiefgefroren (deep-frozen) or in glasses. If you buy fresh kale you have to prepare the leaves before you begin to cook the actual meal.

Fresh kale:

Wash the kale thoroughly because it can be very sandy. After you have washed the leaves you have to blanch them. That is, put them into boiling(!) water and cook them until they crumple up (about 5 to 10 minutes). Then decant the leaves and rinse them in cold water. Subsequently, cut the leaves grossly. Now you can start cooking Grünkohl.

Put everything into a large pot:

In order to cook the kale it has to be covered with water. So, when you are taking kale in glasses you pour the whole content into a pot. If you use fresh or deep-frozen kale you additionally have to pour fresh water into the pot. After that add ¼ piece of well-chopped Weißkohl (white cabbage), some Salz (salt), 2-3 Lorbeerblätter (bay leaves), and 5-6 Gewürzkörner (allspice). The white cabbage reduces the strong flavor of the kale.

Before you can cook the mix you have to add some meat. Which sort of meat you take is up to you, but it has to be fat meat, e.g. pork (smoked pork chop or the neck of pork). Some Germans use a special sort of smoked sausages made from bacon, groats, and spices, called Pinkel. My mother always uses pork. If you don’t eat pork you can of course add any other fat meat, e.g. Hammelfleisch (mutton).

Now that you have added everything into the pot, boil it up and then let it simmer for several hours (3-5 hours) until the meat is soft. Now, remove the meat, let it cool down and store it in the fridge. From now on you have to cook the Grünkohl for several days. My mother usually lets it simmer between 2 and 4 days. She basically does this to make the kale and cabbage as soft as possible and to reduce the strong flavor of the kale. Before my mother serves the Grünkohl she adds the meat again and lets the Grünkohl and meat simmer for another two hours.

My mother basically uses the meat only to flavor the cabbage and to make it fat. We eat the Grünkohl with Gänsebraten (roast goose) / Entenbraten (roast duck) / Putenbraten (roast turkey) and Kartoffeln (potatoes) or Klöße (dumplings), whereas others put a lot of fatty meat to it and eat that meat instead of poultry.

Here you can see one variety of Grünkohl.

Guten Appetit! – Enjoy your meal!

Vocabulary:

der Grünkohl – kale

die Adventszeit – Advent Season

die Weihnacht / das Weihnachten– Christmas

tiefgefroren – deep-frozen

der Weißkohl – white cabbage

das Salz – salt

das Lorbeerblatt (sgl.) / die Lorbeerblätter (pl.) – bay leaf / bay leaves

das Gewürzkorn (sgl.) / die Gewürzkörner (pl.) – allspice

der Pinkel – special sausage made from bacon, groats, and spices

das Hammelfleisch – mutton

der Gänsebraten – roast goose

der Entenbraten – roast duck

der Putenbraten – roast turkey

Do you play an instrument? Maybe the carrot? The cucumber? The pepper? The celeriac? Leek? Or parsley? What sounds like a vegetarian shopping list are, for some people, indeed tools to make music. How can music be fresher and healthier than that?

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra was founded in 1998 and consists of twelve members who use different vegetables to produce a quite experimental kind of music that fuses a variety of music styles such as contemporary music, beat-oriented house, jazz, noise, dub, and clicks’n’cuts.

All instruments are self-made of fresh vegetables and dried plant material. Very popular veggies are carrots, peppers, cucumbers, dried pumpkins, leek, artichokes, celeriac, and onionskin. This results in instruments like: pumpkin drum, celery guitar, cucumber phone, carrot recorder, eggplant clap, celeriac bongo, leek violin, radish bass flute, leek zucchini vibrator, pumpkin triangle, and carrot marimba. In order to build the instruments the musicians use drilling machines, sharp knives, and other kitchen tools. How long it takes to prepare a vegetable instrument depends very much on the instrument. For example, a tomato takes no time at all, and other instruments like a cucumber phone or carrot recorder take between ten to thirty minutes.

The members of the Vegetable Orchestra don’t see their music as a fun project but take it serious and they give concerts all over the world. This can make it sometimes difficult to get the right vegetables. Since vegetables go off soon the musicians have to build their instruments immediately before a concert. Further, they cannot carry the vegetables with them on the plane. Therefore, they need to buy all the vegetables in the country where they appear on stage. One problem is that the quality of the vegetables differs from country to country. For example, in order to build a carrot recorder it is necessary that the carrot has a certain size. Since the instruments do only last for one concert, the Vegetable Orchestra gives some parts of the vegetables in a soup and distributes it to the audience after the concert.

The members see themselves as “Gemüsiker” and “Gemüsikerinnen”, which is a blend of the German words Gemüse (vegetables) and Musiker (m) / Musikerinnen (f) (musicians). So, that you can talk of “vegeticians” in English.

Until now the orchestra has released three albums. The latest one is called “Onionoise”. If you want to know how the instruments are built and how they sound watch the clip below. Enjoy.

If you live in Russia, France or Hong Kong you have the chance to attend a concert this year. The dates are:

30.11.2011 International House of Music, Moscow (Russia)

13.12.2011 Reims (France)

30.12.2011 Ngau Chi Wan Civic Center/Theatre, Hong Kong

31.12.2011 Tai Po Civic Center/Theatre, Hong Kong

1.1.2012 Yuen Long Theatre, Hong Kong