Bremen, Germany: the best wurst, Knipp, and the Town Musicians

This past weekend, we traveled to Bremen, Germany to visit our friend, Felix. His family let us stay in his house and his mom even gave us an insider's tour of the city. The city is in the countryside of Northern Germany. The town has a blend of old historic sites with new modern buildings. I posted about the trip on my travel blog.

His mom showed us their favorite places to get the best wurst (sausage). The bratwurst was perfectly cooked and steaming hot. The sausage was really meaty and full of herbs. This was a great starter to German food.

For lunch we went to a restaurant called Friesenhof. I ordered the FriesenJager Schnitzel which was a breaded pork cutlet, and salt pork fried potatoes. The meat was still juicy and went well with the creamy mushroom sauce.

My friend, Kevin, order the Bermer Knipp which is a local dish with sausages. It is made of ground pork from the belly, head, and rind mixed with barley, and spices. The sausage is then smoked, sliced and fried on both sides to get a golden brown and delicious crust. The knipp was laid upon a mound of fried potatoes and there were gerkins to add acidity to the overall dish. Without the grains in the sausage, the flavor would have been to rich. This dish tasted very similar to haggis.

These dishes were both tasty and we were overwhelmed with food. Sadly, we couldn't even finish our plates - we thought that Americans have huge portions. We also got Beck's beer which is made in the town of Bremen. Let's just say I'm not a huge beer fan.

Then we saw the Town Musicians Statue which comes from a story written by the Brothers Grim.

In the tale, a Donkey, a Dog, a Cat and a Rooster are getting old and are retired from their work on a farm. They realize that they will soon be killed by the farmer and they decide to run away and becomes musicians. What else would these animals be? During the night, they make their way to Bremen and see a cottage with thieves inside.  They hop on eachothers' backs and play music in hopes of getting the thieves approval and perhaps a meal. The music is so "great" that it scares the robbers and they run from the house. The animals rush inside and enjoy a meal together as free animals. Later, one of the robbers return so see what that has taken over their house. The animals act quickly: the Cat scratches the thief's face with her claws, the Dog bites his leg, the Donkey kicks him in the gut and the Rooster crows and chases him out the door. The robber retells his story to his fellow evil doers. He tells them of the witch that scratched him (the Cat), the ogre with the knife (the Dog), the giant who clubbed him (the Donkey) and the finally the dragon who chased him away and screamed from the rooftop (the Rooster). The robbers decide to never return and like good fairy tales, the animals live happily ever after.

After walking around the city, we decided to get a pretzel from the local bakery. It had that chewy outside, bready inside and the amount of salt crystals was perfect.

I forgot to mention that I started a new tradition - every time I visit a city in Europe, I find a kitchen supply store and buy a cooking utensil. In Paris, I bought a whisk and in Germany, I bought a silicon mixing spoon from Henckels. Henckels? Why didn't I buy I knife? I couldn't really bring it on the plane and we didn't have time for me to ship it home. I will find a knife somewhere. Anyways, I really enjoyed my time in the countryside of Germany and I hope that one day you can visit too.