{"id":1586,"date":"2020-06-29T17:52:31","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2020-06-29T17:52:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:52:31","slug":"choucroute-in-alsace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1586","title":{"rendered":"Choucroute in Alsace"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are going wine tasting in the easternmost part of France, you\u2019ll be in Alsace, where they grow white wine grapes, mostly Riesling and Gew\u00fcrztraminer.\u00a0 Now, those are German grapes, which is fitting because over the centuries Alsace has gone back and forth from being a part of Germany to being a part of France.\u00a0 It\u2019s been French since the end of the First World War, but was German for 50 years before that.<\/p>\n

The principal city of Alsace is Strasbourg.\u00a0 It looks very German in its architecture, but the feeling there is joie de vivre<\/em>, not gem\u00fctlichkeit<\/em>.\u00a0 Alsace generally and Strasbourg in particular feel like Germany with French people.\u00a0 And the food is a blend of the two as well.\u00a0 There is the expression \u201cto be stuffed like a Strasbourg goose\u201d, perhaps because that\u2019s how you get fois gras<\/em>, the emperor of all pat\u00e9s.\u00a0 The dish that Alsace is best known for, though, is a mixture of sauerkraut and smoked meats called choucroute<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Photo courtesy of Food and Wine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chou<\/em> is French for cabbage.\u00a0 Put that together with the \u201ckraut\u201d in sauerkraut<\/em> and you get choucroute<\/em>.\u00a0 Today you can find this dish on menus all over France, especially in the cooler months and there are places in Paris and Lyon that make it very well.\u00a0 But the best is in Alsace, where it was born, and the best of the best is to be found in Strasbourg.\u00a0 Which restaurant?\u00a0 That\u2019s like asking where\u2019s the best pizza in Brooklyn: Everywhere!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s made of sauerkraut that\u2019s baked for hours and towards the end adding the meats. At one time or another, we\u2019ve experienced smoked ham, pork chops, frankfurters, Alsatian sausage, Toulouse sausage, Polish kielbasa, knockwurst, bratwurst, weisswurst, thickly sliced bacon, ham hocks and other meats we weren\u2019t exactly sure about. \u00a0Some people consider juniper berries to be an essential ingredient but we don\u2019t agree with those people.\u00a0 There are always a few boiled potatoes and lots of Dijon mustard on the side.<\/p>\n

On Alsatian menus you\u2019ll also find choucroute fruit de mer<\/em>, or sauerkraut with seafood, a combination that never really appealed to us.\u00a0 Salmon, haddock, mussels, shrimp, lobster and langoustines replace the smoked meats.\u00a0 It\u2019s something to try once.<\/p>\n

Our experiences with choucroute<\/em> in France all involve overeating.\u00a0 It\u2019s impossible not to.\u00a0 First of all, any respectable restaurant will pile up the sauerkraut on your plate.\u00a0 Figure a pound per person and you\u2019re just getting started.\u00a0 Then all those meats!\u00a0 Each one is so delicious but cumulatively they\u2019re way too much to finish.\u00a0 Of course, the chef could just serve you less, but instead they tempt you with Choucroute Royale, which just means the basic dish, with more of everything<\/em>.\u00a0 It\u2019s enough for a family of four and you\u2019re supposed to finish it yourself!<\/p>\n

Because of its place of origin, most people drink Alsatian wines with choucroute<\/em> or a beer.\u00a0\u00a0 Our opinion as wine lovers is that a hearty red wine goes best.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are going wine tasting in the easternmost part of France, you\u2019ll be in Alsace, where they grow white wine grapes, mostly Riesling and Gew\u00fcrztraminer.\u00a0 Now, those are German grapes, which is fitting because over the centuries Alsace has gone back and forth from being a part of Germany to being a part of … Continue reading Choucroute in Alsace<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1588,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions\/1588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}