I haven’t done a great deal of traveling in Germany, but during the brief visits I’ve made there, I have had some delicious food. Two things I remember best happen to be very popular kid foods, as confirmed by a German friend of mine, who hails from Nuremberg.
One is fresh pretzels, opened, slathered with a thick layer of butter, and then closed back again like a sandwich. They even give these out as a snack on Lufthansa flights. These pretzels have more in common with fresh baked bread (but with that distinctive pretzel flavor) than ballpark food, and it’s a simple, delicious combination that I had never had before.
Making homemade pretzels is a bit of an ordeal requiring food-grade lye, so for this I bought a German-made baking mix called Kathi, which is available through the World Market website. They weren’t the most exquisite pretzels I have ever seen, but they tasted good. The other option would be to buy frozen soft pretzels from your supermarket and prepare as directed. Then slice in half like a bagel and slather with butter for a wonderful German treat.
Another food that kids in Germany, and everywhere, love is sausages. A fun way to change up the American hotdog and ketchup is with the popular German street food currywurst, a name for sausages with a curried ketchup. In order to taste the authentic version of this sauce, I ordered a bottle of curry ketchup on Amazon. This is the bottle I purchased.
This particular sauce is thinner, sweeter, and less tomato-y than ketchup, with a simple sweet yellow curry flavor. My husband liked it a lot. I personally found it a bit cloying, and wanted a more savory, tomato flavor. So I experimented with my own version, and simply added 1 tsp curry powder and 1 tsp worcestershire sauce to 1/2 cup of ketchup. I was amazed at how great it turned out! You can adjust the amount of curry to your own tastes. If you’ve never tried the combination of curry and ketchup, though, it really is good! And delicious with a sausage or hotdog. My currywurst:
