Wine, Strange Meats, and a Meal (sort of)

Earlier this week I had my hold baggage, a washer, a dryer, and a refrigerator delivered on the same day. The hold baggage was basically some clothes, two lawn chairs, and an air mattress. So now I can sleep upstairs on the air mattress; which, believe it or not, is extremely comfortable.

Since the last delivery was finished just a little after 1400, I had some time on my hands. I took a walk into town to go to the Metzgerei, who my landlord said was very good. He was closed. He closes everyday between 1300 and 1500. He is also only opened until 1230 on Saturdays and not at all Sunday. So I walk down a couple of doors to the Bäckerei. They are closed. I look at the sign to see if maybe they are taking a siesta with the Flieschmeister, but they close everyday at 1230.

Except Sundays, when they don’t open at all. So any purchases from either place it will more than likely be made on Saturday morning.

Undaunted, I ambled over to the Vinothek. They were open, and a young man (OK he was just a kid – but his English was good, and he seemed very nice) led me into the tasting room. He lined up 4 different types of wine for me and proceeded to talk a bit about the style as he poured. We each tried them, and I tried to come up with intelligent winey-sounding comments.

No, that's wine-y (as in wine like) not whiny (as in Beth).

“Fruity with an assertive acidity”

“A hint of green apple”

“Well-rounded, good mouthfeel”

Those types of things. Let’s just say, I could see from his expression that he was not impressed with my ability as a sommelier.

The first three were really good wines, then he poured me one from the 4th. I swirled it around a bit and sniffed it, it smelled a little odd but I couldn’t place it. I tasted the wine, “Good Lord that’s good!” I exclaimed. I sniffed it again, and asked him what it smelled like. He struggled for the words, but we agreed on musty. It smelled a little old, but it tasted damn good. It was from the year 2000, so it was older than most wines, but not old by any means. It had a very good flavor, a nice round mouthfeel, and was not too acidic. Are you impressed? He wasn’t. He just looked at me like he wished I would leave so he could go to lunch. I didn’t buy any wine, but I will definitely go back to get some.

He gave me some literature about the wines from the area. While reading some of the names of the “classified regions" for wines that meet the VDP-Rheingau Classification, I read the name “Hattenheimer Nussbrunnen”. “Where did I see that?” I thought. Then while walking back home, it dawned on me…

It’s right out my front door! OK, you can't see it in this picture, but the little arch just beyond the railroad tracks has "Hattenheimer Nussbrunnen" on it. Really I swear! I thought I had a picture of it on my Flickr page but I didn't. I do have one on another computer, so I will post it later.

After 1500 I went back to the Metzgerei, and this time they were open. I walked in and the woman asked if she could help me. I said something in English, and she gave me a look that was part puzzled, part fear, and part disgust. I get that look a lot from women. She spoke a little bit of English, so that and my mastery of not quite zero languages was enough for us to communicate. Of curse we had to speak the international languages of Force Meat and Pork Fat. I asked her what was made there on premises. She reached into the deli case and pulled about four items out, and said the rest were made there. I couldn’t believe it, there was a pretty large selection of stuff to choose from. I got some garlic salami which tastes sort of like the Lebanon Bologna my mother used to get back in PA. Then I saw this pork loin with hard boiled egg in it. I just had to…

I was curious about how they got the pig to eat those eggs, and more importantly how they could make sure that it would not chew them up. This was going to take some investigatin’...

But first, there were more meats to discover. Since I’m just itching for a rematch, some blutwurst made it into my bag, and I also bought some Presskopf…



I had this for dinner tonight. The plan was put a little olive oil into the pan, sauté some onions, and add the presskopf. I thought it would cook up like a piece of sausage or scrapple, and I would then add a couple of over-easy eggs and have a veritable feast. It didn’t occur to me that the presskopf was held together by gelatin and not the fat/protein matrix of most of the force meats I’m familiar with. So what started out as two nice little slabs of presskopf, became a mix-mash of cheek meat, sinew, gristle, and God knows what. It totally came unglued...

So I just mixed in some eggs and scrambled everything together. I served it with some bread and some hot salsa on the side for dipping the bread and later, some tortilla chips. The salsa was a stroke of genius if I don’t say so myself. Trust me it tasted a lot better than it looks, but then it would have to now, wouldn’t it?