All about Grits

[JackRiepe]

A bar? Are you sure? That doesn't sound like me.

[36654]

Mm.m.m.m.m, scrapple!
There, somebody had to say it.

Good to see you on the Forum, Jack!

The real name is Ponhaus...

Now, how about a nice slice of souse with that?

[36654]

Dear 36654:

I once found myself in a country tavern overlooking the Rhein. It was a traditional sort of place where social events just needed a good putsch. Simple heavy planked tables bore the stein rings of Olympic drinking bouts and held huge plates of coarse rye bread, accompanied by crocks filled with something that I thought was sweet butter. This substance was the color and consistency of shortening. No stranger to most indigenous food, I spread some on my bread and ate it with gusto. My German host looked on with amazement.

He explained I was eating "Schmaltz," or clarified goose fat. Germany is another one of those places where they eat every part of an animal, except the noise it makes. I thought the schmaltz was okay. Your recipe for pig butter sounds like something similar. It even has a similar name. I have had cracklin' but again, I was in the deep south. The depression and the years following the war between the states got people eating anything. I once saw a starving southern belle swallow a whole political speech ÔÇö promises, lies and all ÔÇö after it had been fried in lard. Never underestimate the power of pig fat.

Sincerely,
Jack Riepe/ AKA Steel Mammoth

Thanks for the correction on the spelling..........I thought I was experiencing a bit of yiddish-german confusion. The last time I had schmaltz I was trying to choke down a plate of that salted, some what turned, non-pickled herring they serve in northern germany. As gruesome as the schmaltz sounds, it does have better taste and texture than the herring or liver dumpling soup.

In any event, my friend, you do understand that my PA Dutch ancestors were asked to leave to Germany by their neighbors. In addition to abstaining from alcohol and dancing, the PA Dutch also were also incredibly cheap. As evidence, you can explore the bountiful contributions they made to the Continental Army and Congress, which can be summarized as anything that the colonists could pay for with pound sterling. That frugality extended the dinner table cuisine which was basically a variation on the theme "hog feed bin delights. Meat was cured to a texture of shoe leather with a cacophony of spices - salt, salt, more salt and nothing else. For the table, the shoe leather texture was enhanced by additional pan frying or softened by boiling.

So, while we may tell stories of the food in Germany, just think how bad it could have been if these PA Dutch had stayed and maintained their practices and cuisine.

Some in Germany owes us a big Danke!.......

[JackRiepe]

My ancestors were never asked to leave anyplace. They were generally escorted.

Jack Riepe/AKA Steel Mammoth

[EMSimon]

Dear 36654:
He explained I was eating "Schmaltz," or clarified goose fat. Sincerely,
Jack Riepe/ AKA Steel Mammoth

Sorry to be a smart aleck again, but....

Schmalz - the correct spelling is without the "t" - is the German term for a variety of (animal) fats. Most commonly Schweineschmalz = pork fat, which is made by rendering bacon.
The stuff they put on a table in restaurants in small porcelain pots is exactly that. It is NOT G?ñnseschmalz = goose fat, which would turn almost liquid if kept at room temperature.
The Schmalz in the pots that is spread on dark, rock hard bread as an "amuse gueule" = a small appetizer, is usually doctored up by adding small bacon bits, or -if it is made from frying Bratwurst - some tiny scraps of sausage meet.

Being born in Germany and having lived there the first 36 years of my life (which qualifies me to make an educated post about this), Schmalzbrot used to be one of my favorite small bites and I kept the habit after relocating to the U.S., usually by collecting the fat from frying bacon.
After I got married here, my good wife, ever so concerned about the well being of the guy who sits in front of her on the bike and has to be in a position to manage the controls, especially his high colesterol level ( a typical U.S. American ailment) flat out refused to allow me to eat Schmalzbrot anymore. That was until I brought home an article in The WSJ several years ago that reported on the obession of the Germans with their Schmalz and which stated that Schmalz was lower in colesterol than butter. Ever since, the small Schmalztopf has made its way back into our refrigerator. Only problem is, I cannot get the right bread in the United States....

[TomDac]

Move along... nothing for you to see here... I bet you will not even suck crawfish heads.

I loves me some crawdads!!!

[Newstar]

Schmaltz is indeed made from rendered bacon.

Pig Butter, however, is snowy white and made from lard. Slightly different.

Just sayin'!

[JackRiepe]

Dear Mike:

I made 9 trips to Germany as a travel writer and was sober a total of 45 minutes. Not the 45 minutes it took to get from the airport to the hotel on each trip, but 45 minutes for all 9 trips. You're lucky I can remember that Germany is somewhere between Ireland and China. I stayed in hotels where the average room rate per night (over a two-night stay) was more than i paid for a Volkswagen Beetle in 1972... (These were Kempinski Hotels. I never got the tab, so I didn't care.) In 1985, somebody gave me a Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC to road test on the Autobahn. I remember thinking, "I don't know who the hell these folks think I am, but for once I'm going to keep my mouth shut." I did all my Christmas shopping that year on the Reeperbahn (Hamburg's fabulous red light district), because the section sounded so much like my last name. Oddly enough, it is not a highway. I remember more about the "Snowsuit Girls" than I do about the goose grease. I can prove it too.

I made friends in Germany, on the Reeperbahn, actually. One of those ladies came over here to see me recently. She is 87-years-old now. She put her arm around me and whispered, "Do you remember the schmalz?"

I showed her my last column in the magazine and said, "This is the finest moto schmaltz in the US."

I had an epiphany this winter. I have decided to give up writing humor. It was a hard decision for me but one that I feel had to be made. I am now devoting my editorial skills toward serious technical writing. I want to be known as the "Organic Mechanic." My first story will be "How To Lubricate The Final Drive Splines of a K75 with Schmalz..." It begins, "Catch a good-sized goose and aim the secondary business end at the exposed splines. Give the goose a good squeeze. Be prepared to alter your aim." The story ends with, "Garage floor spillage is a pain. Control it organically by sprinkling uncooked instant grits into any seepage. This is the most perfect use for instant grits as no one will eat them anyway. Do not attempt a cheap shortcut by feeding the grits to the goose. You will be disappointed by the outcome."

We're back to grits again. Cool, huh?

Sincerely,
Jack Reeperbahn

[kantuckid]

My ancestors were never asked to leave anyplace. They were generally escorted.

Jack Riepe/AKA Steel Mammoth

Mine all on a boat & by choice!!! (at least that's what my "geneological brother" tells me) which is what I tell hillbillies that accuse me of being a "carpetbagger", i.e., "at least I'm here by choice, not chance"!

FWIW, my morning newspaper(made of real paper & few pages) has a corn meal mush recipe-water & corn meal, sits overnight & becomes mush which you slice & fry, cover with syrup. It said the Shakers ate the stuff so it had to have been OK with everybody,right?

[EMSimon]

Dear Mike:

I am now devoting my editorial skills toward serious technical writing. I want to be known as the "Organic Mechanic." My first story will be "How To Lubricate The Final Drive Splines of a K75 with Schmalz..." It begins, "Catch a good-sized goose and aim the secondary business end at the exposed splines. Give the goose a good squeeze. Be prepared to alter your aim." The story ends with, "Garage floor spillage is a pain. Sincerely,
Jack Reeperbahn

Jack: I think you are on to something. Your intended warnings are well warranted. As I said, G?ñnseschmalz is not suitable to be handled at room temperature over longer periods of time. Get it out of the fridge, spread it on a slice of bread, sprinkle some salt on it and eat it RIGHT AWAY.
Thus, it is also not recommended to use it as a spline lube. The viscosity is just too high. It will be almost impossible to apply it correctly to the splines at the usual workshop ambient temperatures. In addition, once you run the bike, the increase in temperature caused by mechanical friction will make the Schmalz leak out of the final drive like water through a sieve.
Now, there may be some other lube jobs that G?ñnseschmalz could be used for. Your Reeperbahn friend may know more about this than I do.

[83014]

Haben Sie vergessen? Das discussion ist "Grits"!

[EMSimon]

We just wanted to put some Schmalz in the Grits to make them taste better......

[36654]

We just wanted to put some Schmalz in the Grits to make them taste better......

Boil the schmalz with the grits. Refrigerate for a few days, then slice and fry. Serve with maple syrup.

I think you just made scrapple

[36654]

My ancestors were never asked to leave anyplace. They were generally escorted.

Jack Riepe/AKA Steel Mammoth

The Irish have no food threads......

[36654]

Dear Mike:

I made 9 trips to Germany as a travel writer and was sober a total of 45 minutes. Not the 45 minutes it took to get from the airport to the hotel on each trip, but 45 minutes for all 9 trips. You're lucky I can remember that Germany is somewhere between Ireland and China. I stayed in hotels where the average room rate per night (over a two-night stay) was more than i paid for a Volkswagen Beetle in 1972... (These were Kempinski Hotels. I never got the tab, so I didn't care.) In 1985, somebody gave me a Mercedes-Benz 500 SEC to road test on the Autobahn. I remember thinking, "I don't know who the hell these folks think I am, but for once I'm going to keep my mouth shut." I did all my Christmas shopping that year on the Reeperbahn (Hamburg's fabulous red light district), because the section sounded so much like my last name. Oddly enough, it is not a highway. I remember more about the "Snowsuit Girls" than I do about the goose grease. I can prove it too.

I made friends in Germany, on the Reeperbahn, actually. One of those ladies came over here to see me recently. She is 87-years-old now. She put her arm around me and whispered, "Do you remember the schmalz?"

Jack Reeperbahn

I used to stay a few blocks away, closer the train station, at the Europaeiserhof.