Out of Ambit
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Travel
  • Home life
  • Media
  • Obscure interests
  • Hobbyhorses and General Ranting
Maluns
Owl Be Home For Christmas
Vintage Scots Christmas recipes: “Good Fare Christmas”
From the Young Wizards universe: an update
Irish life: The things you don’t discuss, Halloween...
Q&A: Why is my Malt-O-Meal lumpy and how...
From the Baking-While-You-Write Department: Spicy Apple Pie
Peter Morwood on Moroccan preserved lemons
Greek mythology, feminist reclamation of lost/ancient tradition, and...
Changes coming at YoungWizards.com: your opinion(s) solicited
Outlining: one writer’s approach
A project in progress: translating “La Patissière des...
Pulling The Lever
Weird bread
Peter’s Isolation Goulasch
Business As (un)Usual
  • Home
  • Writing
  • Travel
  • Home life
  • Media
  • Obscure interests
  • Hobbyhorses and General Ranting
Out of Ambit

Diane Duane's weblog

Category:

Germany

AnimationArtCommercialsFilmGermany

The Underberg Ad: “Through the Night to the Light”

by Diane Duane October 12, 2016

Its name in German is “Durch Nacht zum Licht”, and though I’ve loved it for years I had no idea it was so famous.

Some years ago, back when the Sky satellite system had not yet gone digital, numerous analog European stations shared various transponders with the English-speaking services on that generation of Astra satellites. A number of these were German — Bayrischer Rundfunk, the two German national stations ARD1 and ARD 2, Hessische Rundfunk, and various others, including the commercial broadcaster RTL.

One night RTL 2 showed a compendium edition of 50s and 60s German commercials. (The compendium as a whole is available on YouTube, here: about thirteen minutes of assorted stuff. I strongly recommend watching it if only for the below Lady in the Terrifyingly Pointy Bra.)

pointy-bra

 

Anyway, I love programs like this, and so I taped it; and some while ago while we were dubbing some old tapes to CD (this was before DVDs), I made sure to dub that program as well, because I really wanted to share this commercial (and a couple of others). The sponsor is the  herbal digestive bitter called Underberg (which is still sold and quite effective. The main active ingredient, if I remember correctly, is valerian, but I strongly suspect the alcohol content is important in offsetting hangover symptoms.)

This commercial is the freakiest evocation of a hangover nightmare (or frankly any other nightmare) that I’ve ever seen on TV. It turns out that the animator, Hans Fischerkoesen, was famous in Germany: he was often called “Germany’s Walt Disney” and you can read more about him here. Anyway, the thing is impressionistic and there are rats and skeletons and clutching spectral fingers and it’s just terrific. 

So here’s that ad. As it’s clipped out of the compendium setting, it ends a little abruptly. Sorry about that.

Enjoy (if possible!).

Save

Save

October 12, 2016
10 FacebookTwitterTumblrEmail
DiscworldGermanypublishingStar TrekStar Trek and other licensed propertiesthings that piss you off

What’s the Rihannsu for “soup”?

by Diane Duane February 14, 2015

If the above (and below) images look a little bizarre, well, they should. They’re from long-ago German editions of My Enemy, My Ally and The Romulan Way into which the publisher inserted soup ads.

Yes, really.

The story came up again briefly in a series of posts over at the forums at Mark Reads, and I thought I’d store the images here now that I’ve got the scanner seeing sense (short version: disagreement between new printer and old legacy TWAIN driver, never mind the long version, too annoying, solved now).

To quote the original posting:

…It was in or near this chapter of the German translation [of Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids (“Pyramiden“) that Peter ran into something that made our conjoint blood run cold: a soup advertisement.

 

 

Maggi Soups were at that time in some kind of pestilential relationship with Heyne Verlag (then the German publisher of Terry’s books, BUT NOT FOR LONG), and Maggi had taken to inserting little soup ads into the plots of books Heyne were publishing. I knew this because they had stuck one into the middle of the German edition of The Romulan Way (a.k.a Die Romulaner.* One minute things are normal on the Bridge… the next minute, Mr. Sulu is wishing he had a nice cup of soup. GOD I wish I was not making this up. …The altered passages were instantly identifiable by page-wide black spacer bars inserted into the text to make them fit into the flow of the printing.

 

 

So we picked up this copy of Pyramiden as we were passing through Zurich, and we were on our way to the Jungfrau, and in the hotel that night in Interlaken Ost, Peter was paging through the book… and there were the Black Lines. And so he called the Pratchett residence, and Terry was out, but he got Lyn.

 

 

And Lyn, being a sensible woman, didn’t believe him at first. Because who would dare pull crap like that with Terry? So Peter read the altered text to her, translating as he went. And Lyn’s mouth fell open, audibly. She said, “I’ll tell Terry when he gets home.” And when Terry got home, he straightway called Colin the Agent of Doom, and Colin called Heyne, and shortly Terry was not with Heyne any more. AND SERVED THEM RIGHT.

 

 

It was a pleasure to do Terry that service, but a pain in the butt that it had to be done. Seriously: SOUP??

…We no longer have that copy of Pyramiden, alas: it was sold long ago at a Discworld convention charity auction. But we still have the Rihannsu books in question, so now you can see what the pages looked like. Behold: one of the more sordid yet somehow mean and small and pitiful examples of corporate greed you’re likely to see.

*I keep thinking the “a” here should take an umlaut. …Never mind.

Save

February 14, 2015
9 FacebookTwitterTumblrEmail
The Feuerzangerbowle lady gets ready to torch a booze=soaked sugar cube
ChristmasDrinkEuropeGermanyTravel

In the “Christmas in Germany” Dep’t: the Feuerzangenbowle

by Diane Duane December 25, 2014

…or, “You’ll Burn Your Bangs / Fringe Off”

So there’s this drink. It’s mulled wine augmented (a kind word) with flamed overproof spirit, usually rum.

…Okay, wait. A moment’s worth of scene-setting is called for.

So it’s 2014, and we’re in the Münich area for the Christmas period—something that for some time we’d been planning to do when we had enough money: and that year, we did. After a night or two spent in Münich proper and touching base with some friends / business acquaintances, we headed off to the nearby ancient university city of Augsburg to spend Christmas there. As do many other German cities, Augsburg has a very nice Christmas market—the Christkindlesmarkt—and we spent a happy pre-lunch and post-lunch hour there picking up some small presents for friends and family, and (as one does, if so inclined) visiting the local food and drink stalls.

A stall we’d never seen elsewhere was one selling Feuerzangenbowle. We looked on in wonder for a while, and Peter (having recently acquired a new lens for his camera, and a powerful new camera-dedicated flash) started taking some photos.

By a truly magical bit of timing—and also by dint of being really good with his camera—he managed to get this shot of the lady in the Feuerzangenbowle stall dosing the sugar cubes sitting on the cups’ little built-in tongs (that’s the –zange– part of the word) just before setting them on fire. (In her right hand she’s holding the device with which she’ll torch them.)

The Feuerzangebowle ladt

So after he had the camera put away again, P. ordered one for himself (I was then standing off to one side drinking glühwein, less dramatic but also potentially much less angst-ridden) and brought it back. “Oooh,” he said, “smell that, isn’t that lovely, smell the sugar caramelizing…” And I bent over to take a sniff.

And suddenly we could both smell something that WAS NOT SUGAR CARAMELIZING wut wut WUT WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO ME NOW  MORWOOD?!

So after the excitement (and the flames) die down, my bangs are only missing a LITTLE bit on the right side. “Oh look, that just crumbled right off, you’re fine,” says the Helpful Voice, while the Helpful Fingers brush at me. (Note to self: Alcohol flames are usually colorless and well-nigh invisible. Alcohol flames are usually colorless and well-nigh invisible. ALCOHOL FLAMES FUCK FUCK FUCK oh well I have a haircut scheduled after the New Year anyway…)

…Seriously, it’s okay. I’m fine. But make a note for yourself:  DO NOT LEAN OVER THE DAMN FEUERZANGENBOWLE until the flames have GONE OUT.

(eyeroll…)

December 25, 2014
0 FacebookTwitterTumblrEmail
EuropeFoodFood, restaurants and cookingGermanyrecipesSwitzerland

Thinking it’s time to make this cake again…

by Diane Duane March 27, 2013

Schwarzwälder kirschtorte is named for the Schwarzwald or Black Forest region in southeastern Germany, so it’s often known outside the German-speaking countries as “Black Forest Cherry Cake” or “Black Forest Gateau”. This cake is possibly one of the most famous of German desserts… which is interesting when one considers that it (or the inspiration for it) may actually have come from Switzerland. Certainly the kirschwasser* or cherry firewater on which the modern cake is based came originally from the land around the central Swiss lakes, a region still famous for it and home to great kirsch brands such as Etter and Dettling. In any case, the spirit wandered northward to the Rhine Valley and the neighboring Black Forest, where it started to be manufactured fairly widely in the mid- to late 1800’s.

Hand-tinted 1900s postcard showing
a young Schwarzwald woman wearing
the traditional
bollenhut

The ancestors of the cake we now know started emerging during this period. Desserts involving cooked cherries, kirsch, and cream or whipped cream were well known in the late 1800’s. Around the turn of the century, the first known kirschtorte appeared near Zug in Switzerland, where kirsch was distilled from the famous Zuger sour cherries. It was probably just a matter of time before someone combined the cake with the cherries, the cream and the kirsch. There might even have been a visual component involved: some writers suggest that the look of the cake is a sort of visual pun on the traditional costume of country girls in some parts of the Black Forest — reflecting their black or dark brown skirts, their white blouses, and their traditional hats covered with large cherry-red woolen bobbles.

Maybe, maybe not. What we do know is that the famous confectioner Josef Keller (1887-1981) claimed to have invented the modern-style kirschtorte in 1915 at the Café Agner in Bad Godesberg, near Bonn… though the claim was never verified. Whether he did invent it or not, the cake appears in written recipes for the first time in the mid-1930s, turning up in 13th place on a list of favorite German cakes in 1949. Its popularity in Germany grew quickly and steadily after that, and it’s during this period that the kirschtorte starts appearing off its home turf, particularly in Britain.

There the new arrival was unfortunately treated very badly. Normally the first things it lost were the kirsch — since this would have been an exotic and expensive commodity in the UK until a couple of decades ago — and its name, which was quickly anglicized into Black Forest cake / torte / gateau. One by one the cake’s other sterling attributes began to fall away as it was made by more and more people who had no idea what the original recipe was supposed to look like. In this sadly reduced form it became a mainstay of British bad-restaurant cuisine during the period described in Simon Hopkinson’s and Lindsey Bareham’s dryly funny UK food history-cum-cookbook The Prawn Cocktail Years, and this seems to be the cake which has been exported to large portions of North America.

Fortunately the non-ruined version of Schwarzwälder kirschtorte still thrives on its home ground, where the baking industry works under regulations that require a kirschtorte to be made according to a basic set of guidelines. The rules define it as either “a cake made with Kirschwasser and whipped cream or with Kirschwasser and buttercream, or a combination of the two” — so without the kirsch, the cake isn’t genuine. The presence of fruit is actually considered secondary to the presence of the kirsch, the flavor of which has to be clearly apparent. The layers — of a light Viennese cake or sponge — must contain at least 3% cocoa or chocolate (though there can be more), and the topping must be of either buttercream or whipped cream, and garnished with chocolate.

But inside those guidelines, naturally there’s a fair amount of discussion among interested bakers about the fine points of cake construction technique and secondary ingredients. Slice the layers from a single cake, or bake them separately? Cherry compote or whole cherries in the filling? Add a shortcrust-pastry base and use sponge cake or Viennese cake in only the upper layers? The discussion goes on.** But regardless of the quibbling of the experts, Schwarzwälder kirschtorte remains one of Germany’s favorite cakes, if not the favorite, often known as the “Queen of Cakes”. It appears in good bakeries all over the three German-speaking central European countries, and the Todtnauer holiday region in the Black Forest sponsors an annual Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte festival.

Our recipe is an adaptation of one which has been making the rounds on the Net since the first days of online recipe exchange, though its source is uncertain due to its attribution having been stripped off long ago. This recipe uses both buttercream and whipped cream, and also follows the bake-the-layers-separately routine. This is a little more work than baking just one layer and slicing it — but it seems a good way to keep the kirsch evenly distributed, rather than making it easier for it to leak out of the upper layers and pool in the cake’s bottom.


The three baked layers: they’ll fall a little after baking
to about 3/4 inch thick 
 

For the cake:

  • 6 large eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • 4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
  • 1 cup flour, sifted

For the syrup:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons Kirsch

For the filling:

  • 1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar / icing sugar
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 2 tablespoons Kirsch

For the topping:

  • 2 cups canned sour cherries, drained
  • 2 tablespoons confectioners’ / icing sugar
  • 1 cup heavy cream, whipped
  • 8 ounces semisweet chocolate

A couple of notes before starting:

  • The cake layers are made without any leavening agent such as baking powder — so that the only thing that makes the layers rise in the baking is the air you’ve beaten into the batter. You therefore have to concentrate on incorporating as much air as possible during the beating process. If using a mixer, make sure to use the whisk attachment instead of the normal cake beater. If using an egg beater or hand mixer, you may need to beat the basic egg and sugar mixture for longer than ten minutes to get it light and fluffy enough.
  • Because the cake doesn’t contain any shortening, it stales quickly. The buttercream filling/icing therefore fulfills another function besides just tasting nice and holding the layers apart: it keeps the cake from drying out prematurely. If as you’re constructing the cake you start getting the feeling that there isn’t going to be enough buttercream to cover it evenly on the outside to at least 1/4 inch thick, pause to make some more buttercream. Later on you’ll be glad you did.

The final result after the whipped cream topping goes on

FOR THE CAKE: Beat eggs, sugar, and vanilla together until thick and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Alternately fold chocolate and flour into the egg mixture, ending with flour. Pour the batter into 3 8-inch cake pans that have been well greased and floured. (Do not use oil to grease the pans: use butter or Crisco or a similar solid fat. If you use oil, the layers will probably stick to the pans. Also: make sure you do the greasing and flouring even if you have nonstick pans.)

Bake the layers in a preheated 350 degree F. oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool cakes in pans for 5 minutes; then carefully turn out on racks and allow to cool completely.

FOR THE SYRUP: Make syrup by mixing together sugar and water and boiling for 5 minutes. When syrup has cooled, stir in kirsch. Prick the cake layers and pour syrup over all 3 layers.

FOR THE FILLING: To make the butter-cream filling, beat together sugar and butter until well blended. Add egg yolk; beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Fold in Kirsch.

CAKE ASSEMBLY: To assemble cake, place 1 layer on a cake plate. Spread with butter cream filling. Using 3/4 cup of the cherries, which have been patted dry, drop cherries evenly over cream. Place second layer on cake. Repeat. Place third layer on top. Fold 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar into the whipped cream. Cover the sides and top of the cake with whipped cream.

Decorate top of cake with remaining 1/2 cup cherries. Grated chocolate is perfectly acceptable as a topping, but if you prefer to make chocolate curls from a chocolate bar, shave them off the bar (at room temperature) with a vegetable peeler. Refrigerate the curls until ready to use. Press the chocolate curls on sides of cake; sprinkle a few on the top. Chill the cake until serving time. Afterwards, because of the cream, keep the cake in the fridge until it’s finished.

*Just a quick note here to avoid confusion: kirschwasser is not cherry brandy, or any kind of cherry liqueur. It’s not a sweet spirit at all. You could describe it as a schnapps in the original sense of the word — nothing like the sweet “schnapps” concoctions of more recent times.

**There’s also a Swedish variant in which all the layers are meringue, but this one seems to drop out the kirsch entirely, so it’s not really a Black Forest cherry cake regardless of its name.

Disclosure: I’ve ganked this recipe from its home at EuropeanCuisines.com because I put it there to begin with, and I bloody well feel like it. 🙂

Save

Save

March 27, 2013
10 FacebookTwitterTumblrEmail

The blogger


40 years in print, 50+ novels, assorted TV/movies, NYT Bestseller List a few times, blah blah blah. Young Wizards series, 1983-2020 and beyond; Middle Kingdoms series, 1979-2019. And now, also: Proud past Guest of Honour at Dublin2019, the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, Ireland.

Archive

On sale at Ebooks Direct

Recent comments

  • From the Young Wizards universe: an update - Out of Ambit on Changes coming at YoungWizards.com: your opinion(s) solicited
  • Review: <em>A Wizard Alone</em> by Diane Duane – Disability in Kidlit on Young Wizards New Millennium Editions: a little more info
  • Top Ten Tuesday ~ Books that Make Me Hungry – BookWyrm Knits on Seed cake: a recipe
  • Dr. John Watson's CV: Searching for the Secrets on Dr. John Watson’s CV
  • Dr. John Watson's CV: Searching for the Secrets on The Starship and the Upstairs Flat

Now at Ebooks Direct

 

Feel like buying the writer a coffee?


That's kind of you! Just click here.

Popular Posts

  • 1

    What part of the cow does corned beef come from

    March 16, 2006
  • 2

    Lahey No-Knead Bread recipe: one baker’s experiences so far

    December 9, 2006
  • 3

    Seed cake: a recipe

    January 1, 2013
  • 4

    Young Wizards New Millennium Editions: a little more info

    May 30, 2011
  • 5

    The Affair of the Black Armbands (or, The Death of Sherlock Holmes and How The World Took It)

    January 17, 2012

Associated websites


...all divisions of the
Owl Springs Partnership

Previously on “Out Of Ambit”…

Maluns

Owl Be Home For Christmas

Vintage Scots Christmas recipes: “Good Fare Christmas”

From the Young Wizards universe: an update

Irish life: The things you don’t discuss, Halloween...

Q&A: Why is my Malt-O-Meal lumpy and how...

From the Baking-While-You-Write Department: Spicy Apple Pie

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Flickr
  • Tumblr
  • RSS
Footer Logo

(c) 2020 Diane Duane | all rights reserved | WP theme: PenciDesign's "Soledad"


Back To Top