Eating bread, pasta and pig in Germany

Bavarian schweinbraten is one of those dishes

that helps warm one up in the winter ;b

These Swabian maultasche look like from the outside

like large elongated ravioli...

 But when cut into half, their inside brings to mind lasagne to me!

Before my most recent trip to Germany, a friend of mine in Hong Kong told me to enjoy eating lots of sausages.  But as was the case on my previous trips to Germany (including in 2010, when I first visited my German friend in her home country), I actually ended up eating far more meals that didn't involve a single sausage than ones that did -- and, in fact, I ate more sausages on the flights to and from Deutschland than I did in Germany itself!

Actually, what I ate the most regularly on this past German trip was bread -- and there was many a day when I'd have bread at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Although this may sound boring, it was not since there really are many varieties of bread to be found in Germany: for example, I tried bread made out of chestnuts for the first time on this recent vacation!  

Also, I didn't just have German bread -- which actually may be my favorite bread in the whole wide world -- on this recent holiday.  Instead, on the two occasions that my German friend and I opted to have some Turkish food, there was Turkish bread -- which I first grew to love when I visited Istanbul some years back -- thrown into the mix!

The second most common thing I ate this past holiday was pig meat - be it in the form of pork, ham or bacon.  (And yes, I sometimes wonder which people love pig more -- the Chinese or the Germans!)  Among the more memorable and  delicious pig meat I had this time around were a traditional Bavarian pork loin dish -- despite not visiting Bavaria this time around! -- and a Swabian one featuring pasta that was thicker, rougher and more substantial than the Italian versions that I'm more familiar with, with a spinach filling and served with fried bacon along with onions.

While the Swabian maultasche was pretty unusual, it still was not the most exotic thing I ate on my recent German holiday.  And neither, even, was the cheese with volcanic ash in it -- the second time I've eaten such a thing (with the first time having been at the Caprice Bar in Hong Kong).  Instead, that accolade has to go to the lard that I have to say really does taste great when spread on good bread -- one of them a traditional German pig fat concoction that I had in Trier with some tasty craft beer; and another a vegetarian version that may be considered to be healthier! ;b