It seems that everywhere you go in the UK at the
moment has a German-themed Christmas Market. Last year I decided to go to
Germany and visit a real German Christmas Market to see how authentic the UK
ones are. The most traditional German Christmas Markets are supposed to be in
Bavaria, where temperatures in winter plummet well below zero and you are
pretty much guaranteed to have a decent dusting of snow; so I headed to
Nuremberg for their traditional Christkindlesmarkt
a few weekends before Christmas.
All in all, whilst it was an enjoyable experience, I can conclude
that the British versions are pretty authentic – the Nuremberg market was
massively over-crowded, there were rows and rows of stalls selling Liebkuchen and tourist tat and it was
essential to drink to stay warm. The temperature was somewhere around minus
five degrees and even at ten o’clock in the morning, all the locals seemed to
be tucking into something to warm their cockles (or Herzmuscheln, more likely). Now, I’m sure most people are familiar
with mulled wine (Glühwein), but I
discovered something even better… Feuerzangenbowle,
which loosely translates as “fire tongs punch”.
To make it, you
put red wine into a bowl and add cloves, orange and cinnamon sticks, and then
heat it; thus creating a mulled wine. On top of this mulled wine a metal grate
is put on top and a rum-soaked sugar loaf is placed on it. This sugar loaf is
then set alight, which creates a great sense of theatre (similar to our
lighting of the Christmas pudding), but also allows the sugar and fruit to caramelise
and then fall into the bowl to make a sweet rum/mulled wine punch, which certainly packs quite a punch! I was even more surprised
when I was asked if I wanted an extra shot of rum in my mug? Well, it was very
cold and I needed to keep that cold at bay, so…
What better way
to start your day? Prost und Frohe
Weihnachten!
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