Strasbourg, France – Let’s see, what do the French do better than the Germans? Well, they speak better. Every time I hear a French person talk, I think they’re proposing marriage. Every time I hear a German talk, I think they’re going to deck me.
The French tan better. Then again, the French have the Mediterranean; the Germans have the North Sea. And you think the French are cold. Also, the French have better boat rides. Motoring past Paris’ Eiffel Tower is slightly more romantic than motoring past Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Tower.
But sauerkraut?
Yes, it’s possible. At least, in this little corner of France, where Franco and Germanic cultures bleed together into everything from lifestyle to food, the French may have put Germany’s prized pickled cabbage in a pickle.
I have become somewhat of a pseudo expert on sauerkraut. I spent the previous four weeks in Germany where sauerkraut seems to be an accompaniment to every meal. It’s a custom I have wholeheartedly encouraged as the rich sourness of Germany’s tangy sauerkraut has given me added spice to my cuisine, as well as a small dependency problem.
A hotel clerk in Saarbrucken alerted me to this during one breakfast when she said it’s not German custom to put sauerkraut in Cocoa Puffs. I thought she was gong to deck me.
So I came to Strasbourg for the start of the Tour de France and learned that besides its spectacular 600-year-old
cathedral and quaint Petite France neighborhood, its biggest pride and joy is a sauerkraut called choucroute.
Choucroute (pronounced shoe-CROOT) looks very similar to the sauerkraut across the Rhine in Germany. But in a way, it tastes better. If you look inside, you’ll see a multitude of spices and berries you won’t find elsewhere. Juniper berries. Cumin seeds. Bay leaves. Coriander seeds.
They all add a little zest to a vegetable that, after four weeks, can start tasting fairly ordinary. After all, it is only pickled cabbage. Not even donning a beret and telling a waiter, “J’aimerai choucroute” can romanticize it much.
But three colleagues and I ventured into Petite France and found this diet staple every bit as good, if not better, than anything we found in Germany. Maybe it was the atmosphere. Petite France dates back to medieval times, before cars, when the local tanners and fishermen who cranked Strasbourg’s economic engine lived among narrow, windy streets.
They’re lined with small chalet-like buildings with rich, brown trim. The neighborhood is awash in a soft glow from 18th-century lanterns.
In this setting along little Rue des Dentelles we found L’ami Fritz, allegedly the best choucroute peddler in town. L’ami Fritz has only seven tables, a wooden liquor cabinet and wooden chalkboards where it lists the specials.
I ordered the choucroute traditionnelle a l’alsacienne. The traditional dish of this Alsace region isn’t just sauerkraut. Alsace, France’s smallest region tucked into an eastern corner next to Germany and Switzerland, has been known since the Middle Ages for its pork products.
Understandably, my sauerkraut came out covered in a variety of sausages. I found myself, however, picking around the meat to dig into the heaping mound of pickled cabbage with the juniper berries adding a wonderful tang I never experienced in Germany.
Accompanied by an onion tart, another Alsatian specialty, and one of the local Riesling wines that have been famous for 800 years, it provided a spectacular meal for about 20 euro ($24).
While Strasbourg has a quiet air of
sophistication about it (at least before the Basque cycling fans showed up), the Alsace region is very rural. Choucroute has been popular for centuries as all the ingredients are found in the countryside and can be stored in cans for the long, hard winters.
The next night I went out with Dale Robertson, my fellow foodie and former restaurateur from the Houston Chronicle, to Restaurant Au Grenadier. There we stepped up in kraut class. We ordered the choucroute royale, which is soaked in champagne.
For 35 euro ($40), it’s for two and is served, basically, in a trough. It’s in a 3-inch-deep baking dish and the heaping mound of choucroute was covered in six different sausages, giant slabs of ham and pork shoulder surrounding a giant pig’s knuckle. I was appalled by the Denny’s-sized portion but amazed at the variety of tastes coming from one animal.
Dale and I sat outside on a 75-degree night, sipped a local pinot noir out of traditional long-stemmed, bell-shaped Alsatian glasses and watched the pork fall off the knuckle with just a swing of my fork.
Germany was about a 3-wood away, just across the Rhine. But even while eating its famous food, the country didn’t seem very close.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
