Green peppercorns can be found brined, in little jars like capers. While the most famous dish, "steak au poivre vert," from France, is savory, the milder taste of the green peppercorn goes well with fruit and other, slightly sweet dishes.

Strawberries go well with this spice and a simple marinade makes a fancy dessert for guests. Served with cream, yogurt or over ice cream, you will find that many of your German friends are very familiar with this recipe.

Check out prices for green peppercorns here.

How to brine your own green peppercorns here.

_{Photo © J.McGavin}

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I found Duncan Hines Amazing Glaze on my store shelf a few weeks ago and wondered if the US had finally produced a "Kuvertür" like you find in Germany. Promptly purchased, it wasn't until this week that I had a chance to test it out on a cake.

"Kuvertür" or couverture is a chocolate product that is used to coat cakes such as the Sachertorte or candy. Because it is a bit fiddly to work with, most households use "Kakaohaltige Fettglasur" instead, which is formulated by the industry to look like couverture. It has cocoa powder, fats, sugar, milk powder and emulsifiers, which make it easy to melt and use. Most of the "Glasur" is sold in 100 or 200 gram packages which can be warmed in a water bath, kneaded, then poured directly over the cake. When it cools, it forms a hard chocolate crust with a satin luster. Chocolate and hazelnut are the most common flavors.

So here was a bottle with a pour spout with the words chocolate and glaze on it. It sure looked like it could be the real thing. I heated it in the microwave according to directions and squirted it over the warm, Bundt cake. Alas, the glaze is thinner than what I was looking for and tastes more like Hershey's syrup than the German "Glasur." It also dried funny. It wasn't hard, but had a jelly-like consistency to it, almost like you expect for a ganache.

Well, I should have known. The catch phrase on the bottle calls it, "A lightly decadent dessert topping," which leaves very little room for a crusty, chocolate coating. I'm sure it has its uses but not exactly on German cakes.

_{Photo © J.McGavin}

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If you like mashed potatoes for dinner, you should learn about the types the Germans talk about. Like the Eskimos having 20 words for snow (I think that's an old-wives tale, actually), German contains many words for mashed potatoes. "Kartoffelpueree" and "Stampfkartoffeln" are two. The first is the very smooth kind; peeled, boiled potatoes ("Salzkartoffeln") are sent through a potato ricer or food mill, stirred with butter and thinned with hot milk or cream until fluffy. "Stampfkartoffeln" are the chunky kind of mashed potatoes, mashed with a masher or fork, butter and milk. Both kinds are flavored with freshly ground nutmeg in addition to salt and pepper.

"Kartoffelpüree" is also called "Kartoffelbrei," "Kartoffelmus," "Erdäpfelpüree" (Austrian) or "Kartoffelstock" (Swiss).

"Stampfkartoffeln" are also known as "Quetschkartoffeln" in Berlin.

Another kind of mashed potatoes is known as "Zamet" and comes out of the Thuringian Forest in Central Eastern Germany. It is made with Potatoes, milk and potato starch with no additional fats. It is stiff and served with Thüringer Rostratwurst, Leeks or Mushroom soup. It is also eaten sweet with browned butter and pear compote.

Also, in Upper Lusatia (partly in Saxony, Brandenburg and Poland - See also "Spreewald"), they make something called "Abernmauke." It is made with potatoes mashed with melted butter, sauteed onions, browned bacon, milk and nutmeg. "Teichelmauke" is potatoes mashed with beef broth or milk and served with a ladle of beef broth in a well made in the potatoes.

_{Photo Eisbein with Kartoffelbrei © Winfried Gänßler CC BY-SA 3.0}

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With news of the E. coli problems in Europe at the moment, I would like to take some time to look at how Escherichia sp. lands on our food. As you may know, bacteria make up a third of our solid waste and are vital for the health of our intestine and even help digest certain foods. They survive at body temperature in any moist environment where there is food. So how do they end up on the (raw) vegetables we eat?

Manure and night soil have been used as fertilizers for thousands of years, which is a good reason that, in the Middle Ages it was considered healthier to cook all food and not eat it raw. In modern times it is still used and there are governmental regulations to keep it off vegetables and fruits that humans eat, although imperfectly. In Germany, "Gülle" is used on pastureland and only at certain times of the year.

"Gülle" is the liquid and solid waste of pigs and cows and is kept in large tanks. A whole industry surrounds "Gülle" transport and delivery (see video 1 and video 2). This takes care of a couple of problems, what to do with the waste generated by large numbers of animals and how to fertilize fields ecologically and economically.

Of course, disadvantages are the smell, especially near towns or highways, increase of ammonia and nitrate in ground water, which cause algae blooms and fish die-offs. Also, live bacteria are brought back into the ground and some of them can cause disease.

This is a possible route of contamination of the bean sprouts in Lower Saxony, which have been fingered for the recent epidemic. Although authorities have not found any bean sprouts testing positive for the strain of bacteria, they suspect that either the beans were contaminated before sprouting or the water used was contaminated.

_{Photo © J.McGavin}

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