Pleasant dinner last night. Divided the cooking duties. HG fried potatoes and cooked bratwurst (simmered in beer for 15 minutes and then grilled to a brown crisp). BSK made sublime sauerkraut. Drained Bubbie’s kraut and cooked it with onions, apples, olive oil and a bit of chicken stock. Subtle, non-acidic flavors. So. Kraut and spuds were first rate. Brats were okay. Just okay. Plenty of pungent Polish mustard and Bubbie’s Bread and Butter pickles plus Shiner Bock Beer (“The Pride of Shiner, Texas”) helped the cause, but just barely. It made HG muse: “Where are the brats of yesteryear?” For years one could get inexpensive, succulent platters of brats-kraut-home fries in scores of German restaurants throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Luchow’s, Blue Ribbon, The Heidelberg and Volk’s were the leaders of the pack and HG quaffed much beer at these Teutonic shrines of hearty eating. Other than The Heidelberg (opened in 1936) they are all gone, alas. Of course New York, being New York, still offers authentic German Food — and the great Yorkville butcher Schaller & Weber sells some of the finest brats around — but the golden age of cheap and delicious NY German restaurants is over.
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