She went Food Crazy at her open mic night yesterday. And here’s a poem for that crowd.
The Waves of the Donau River
In the beginning was the Mais
Filling my host mother’s Tasche
At the mill beside the Tauber River
And the frisch Milch from Bauer Nurr
Whose American wife was German enough
to grow coarse black curls on her calves and ankles,
and ei and sahne and schokolade and zuecker
And my host mother’s hands mixing two batches
First the white tort, then the chocolate
then das Messer cutting both into waves
And my host mother’s fingers hiding Kirschen
in the waves
and hiding the pan of waves
in her oven
And behold cream fell upon the Donauwellen and covered her waves.
And das Messer spread waxy schocolade over all
und die Hausfrau did speak and allow
us to eat of any food in her kitchen,
but of the Donauwellen we were not to eat
“Or you will surely die.”
But I whispered in my host brother’s ear,
“We will not surely die,”
And so we took
And ate.
And it was good.
{ 17 comments }
Yum! Glad you joined us this evening.
Mark,
That is wonderful. A poet sends a word from the past. I smile at the light that shines back from my screen. It’s not the glow from my monitor I see. It’s the light in the eyes of two lyoung boys’ eyes.
Liz
You are sweet, Liz. And I love love love food. You picked a great topic.
Makes me think of my German grandmother, and all the sweets that fell from her hands.
Char, it’s good to hear from you in the comments. I loved your post about your daughter’s flip-flops this morning.
L.L., the thing I love best about German sweets is that they aren’t too sweet. Some deserts in American almost burn my tongue with their sugary-ness!
“Whose American wife was German enough
to grow coarse black curls on her calves and ankles” – I especially love this part. After reading the poem, it makes me want to start baking some German Apple Cake or something.. !
Whew. Ally, I thought you were going to say the poem made you want to go bohemian.
If you are making German pastries, Zwetchgen Kuchen was always my favorite. : )
I LOVE German Pastries *drool*!
That recipe is all in German :\
Ally, don’t you know Babel fish? But then you have to deal with the conversions. So try this:
Plum Cake (Zwetschken Kuchen–it’s really more like shortbread)
from Great German Recipes
3 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup butter
3 1/2 lbs. of fresh damson plums (or just sliced fresh red plums)
Sift flour and baking powder onto a large board or clean countertop. Make a hollow in the middle. Crack eggs into hollow, add 3/4 cup sugar and stir. Scatter dots of butter over flour and knead all ingredients together until dough is smooth and soft. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Wash and pit plums, slitting them in half so that they lay flat so that they lay flat but still connected (if damson), or slicing them (if regular red plums).
Roll dough out onto greased jellyroll pan. Cover with overlapping rows of plums. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of sugar and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. Serve with unsweetened whipped cream.
And coffee, of course!
There is just never a good time to fast… now I want to break open the cupboards and tear into the German Chocolate I brought back from my last European Trip…
And I thought recipe talk was only on Craver’s blog. Well, now, wonders never cease.
What? Food?
As I read the poem, it sounded to me like something I might hear from Danny Kaye.
Markus,
I can see that you’re wife has you well trained in the kitchen!
Carl, I’m jealous of your European chocolate! Savor it.
L.L., everything Craver does becomes the model for me. : ) He’s my hero.
Craver, “two and two are four, four and four are eight… inch worm, inch worm, measuring the marigolds…”
Eve, I hope I haven’t given you the impression that I bake this stuff? My wife does! (In fact, she just finished a beautiful Swetschgen Kuchen to take to our Sunday school class on Easter. I’ll post some pictures of it later next week.
On the other hand, I always clean up. That’s our agreement. Whenever she cooks, I clean.
Wow-you clean?! I like that arrangement!
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