Cooking like a local in Germany

People like to try anything new and food should not be spicy but delicious. They use  Once they like it they will come again and again. Like rice. I know a girl around who serve Rice with Salad and a Sweet dish and people like it.

Ahh, food. One of my favorite topics! I live in in Swabia (southwestern Germany), and my husband and I enjoy cooking. There is a fabulous little restaurant in our tiny little town where the chef spoils us with Swabian and non-Swabian dishes. He has also offered cooking classes, and we’ve done 11 of them during the last 4 years. Other than that, we’d rather cook at home than go out.

Popular dishes here (not necessarily easy to prepare): Maultaschen, Kässpätzle, Zwiebelrostbraten, Swabian potato salad, white asparagus, Gaisburger Marsch (a stew), lentils with Spätzle and sausage, “Wild” – wild boar, venison, and some like the sketchy dishes involving tripe/innards. Most loved Swabian dishes require tons of sauce and onions, and typical sides are Spätzle (Swabian noodles), Kroketten, dumplings, or fried potatoes. Pork and potatoes in all their various forms are common, Schnitzel, Rouladen, Geschnetzeltes, a Butterbrezel for a snack…

Whenever possible we buy our ingredients at small shops - butcher, Hofladen, bakery - and I've started buying eggs straight from a local farmer at his egg-Automat.

The advantage I found to giving up trying to use recipes “from home” is that some ingredients were hard to find, and everything tastes different anyway. Most sauces and recipes I knew required a can of some kind of Campbell’s soup, and the meat is so different here (US meat is _full_ of fat). In the US when you fry ground beef, you have to drain the pan of grease before moving on to the next step. Here we have to ADD fat to the pan before frying. Frying bacon in the US leaves you with a sickening amount of grease to dispose of, and here we might have a few tablespoons (granted, the bacon slices are decidedly thinner).

The advantages to learning to cook German dishes when living in Germany are that the ingredients are readily available and you don’t have to figure out substitutions, and it’s a good exercise with the language! There are lots of cooking shows to watch on German TV, and there are plenty of places that offer cooking classes. I met one of my best friends here at a cooking class!

Also seasonal/traditional:
Raclette or Fondue on New Year’s Eve
lamb at Easter
white asparagus from mid-April to June 24
pfifferlinge (chanterelles) from June through fall
pumpkin dishes in the fall
goose, red cabbage, and dumplings on St. Martin’s Day (Nov.. 11)
rote Wurst at festivals & Christmas markets

Sorry for the lengthy response. :-)

Traditional food varies a lot depending on where you are. The poster above me posted about Schwäbisch food (which is delicious...my family is from that part of the country and I highly recommend it), but that kind of food is as foreign as French food in Berlin. In Berlin, traditional food more or less consists of pork and potatoes. On the coast, you get more fish. You get the idea. The good part about Berlin is that it's more cosmopolitan than most of the country, so you have a lot of influences seeping into the local cuisine. That's great if you want to eat a lot of pizza and burgers, but less great if you want to eat something super "German."

What are some of the most popular local dishes that are easy to prepare?

Anything involving meat and potatoes. Just fry up some bratwurst, boil some potatoes and serve up a side of salad and you have a passable meal.

What are the most common ingredients used in dishes in Germany? Where can you purchase them?

Probably potatoes or flour. You can buy this anywhere. I mean, it's Germany. Obviously local ingredients are easy to find. Seasonal veggies are easy to find as well. Generally, if it's common in European cuisine, you can find it anywhere when it's in season (barring a few exceptions).

Is there a specific technique or a secret ingredient to master the local cuisine?

No. I make everything from scratch, though.

Are there resources available to teach you to cook like a local (classes, websites, etc.)?

chefkoch.de . It's a website where people post their own recipes. Those cooking magazines at the supermarket checkout usually aren't half bad if you have absolutely no idea what to make.

What are the advantages of learning to prepare local dishes in Germany?

Availability of ingredients. If you expect to eat exactly like you did at home, you'll be sorely disappointed, even if you come from another European country. If you adapt a bit to the food and ingredients available here, you'll find your meals are cheaper and easier to prepare.