Freakshakes offered at Terrys Ice Cream Bar in Lynchburg, Ohio.
Remember when every bar was adding over the top skewers in their Bloodies? And it was not just a celery stalk or cheese chunk, olive and mini pickle My favorites were the skewered mini hamburger slider by Jerry’s Jug House, and the skewered Goetta Ball in the Bloody at Libby’s Southern Comfort.
Well, this summer’s trend is a bit like the over the top skewered Bloody, but in the form of a milkshake- sundae hybrid called a Freakshake. It’s iliterally a “My Milkshake is better (bigger) than yours” competition amongst ice cream parlors. These toppings are more than sprinkles, chocolate sauce or nuts. They’re ice cream sculptures or even works of art. Some even rim the glass or cup. Things like peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, or caramel are used as glue to keep things like cookies, brownies, cupcakes on top of the milkshake. Other ingredients are speared like a Bloody into the drink to keep them stable. Items like Marshmallow Peeps, Cotton Candy, gourmet popcorn, funnel cakes, donuts and literally anything else you can imagine are topped on to make a mound of delicious craziness.
There’s no such thing as too over the top in a Freakshake. They harken back to the days of Ferrell’s Ice Cream Parlors clown sundaes, which were like a five person serving.
Terry’s Ice Cream Bar in Lynchburg, Ohio, was one of the first locally to offer these freakshakes a few summers ago. They call them crazy shakes and have about twenty-three flavors including Unicorn, S’mores, Caramel Explosion, Cookie Monster and Over the Rainbow (which comes with an entire slice of rainbow cake). The Carnival Shake is topped with cotton candy, popcorn, Twinkies and a lollipop. The only thing missing is a fried Oreo. Although the calories in one shake probably exceeds the recommended daily calories, you can also get pizza at Terry’s and any sundry groceries you need after you fast for the next two days.
Another one, KraZee Shakes in Milford, Ohio, just announced that they were closing for unforeseen circumstances after only being open for a year. They have a smaller variety than Terry’s – about a half dozen – and most are the same flavors as Terry’s. They have an interpretation of the Unicorn, the S’mores, Cookie Monster, along with a Peanut Butter, and Salted Caramel version.
Freakshakes offered at Nomad in Bellevue Kentucky come in alcoholic versions.Lori’s American Grill in Goshen also offers Freakshakes.
If you’re looking for an adult experience, Nomad in Bellevue, Kentucky, has both virgin and alcoholic versions. Lori’s American Grill in Goshen has Crazyshakes and Dreamy Café in Miamisburg, south of Dayton, Ohio, has them. Even Blue Ash Chili has entered the game with a freakshake of the week, one of which was the PB&J for the month of May. It had about a dozen nutter butter cookies on top with strawberry compote and whipped cream. Cincy Chili and Freakshakes sound like a beautiful marriage to me.
So far neither Graeters, UDF nor Aglamesis have gotten into the Freakshakes phenom, but if they’re smart they will. I see a version of the Cincinnati Nectar soda freek-ized, maybe with a few Opera Creams on top.
They’re all pure theatre and super-fun for kids, but expect to pay above ten bucks for these ice cream performances. If I were to create a crazy shake – It would be called the Amsterdam – a speculas flavored shake topped with whipped cream, about a dozen pfeffernuse cookies, some ‘glued’ to the side with Belgian chocolate, a tompouse snack cake on top and sprinkled with rainbow Hagelslag sprinkles and a handful of salty, sour Dutch black licorice. You’re welcome Cincinnati dairy bars!
What most people don’t know is that the month of June in the Tristate is sauerkraut ball rolling month. Mayor Pureval should officially designate it as such, given our area’s strong Germanic heritage. These will be all the balls served at the local German fests and beer gardens leading up into the August start of the local Oktoberfest season. I know, right? Oktoberfests starting in August?
Germania Society in Colerain Township spent last month hand rolling and then freezing sauerkraut balls for their end of August Oktoberfest. They estimate that 30,000 kraut balls will be devoured by hungry Cincinnatians at this several day event.
Volunteers have also been hand rolling “hundreds of dozens” – that amounts to several thousand balls – for Oldenburg Indiana’s upcoming Freudenfest. Oldenburg is a quaint town about an hour west of Cincinnati in Southeastern Indiana, that was populated by mostly Catholic immigrants from goetta country – that is northwestern Germany. It’s known as the city of spires because of all the gothic churches in the small farm community. It’s also known as the mother house for the Franciscan sisters of Oldenburg. These were the sisters who basically raised and taught me as a kid at Corpus Christi and St. Bart’s Consolidated Schools. My favorite nun, sister Carlene is buried in the large nun’s section of the church cemetery behind the convent, as is Sr. Margaret, my sixth grade teacher, who ruled with an iron fist and a thick wooden ruler.
Freudenfest is your first opportunity to taste a locally hand-rolled sauerkraut ball in 2022. The funny thing is that even though Oldenburg was populated by Goetta country Germanics, most people, like all our other “German” local festivals will wear the costumey lederhosen and dirndls of Bavaria, a region on the complete opposite end of Germany from the immigrants who founded Oldenburg. That would like someone in New York wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots at an Italian fest like Giglio Fest in Brooklyn. At Freudenfest, they dress Like a Southern Bavarian to celebrate a North German heritage. Instead of lederhosen, men should be wearing black broad brimmed hats, vests, and the shin-length breeches of northwestern Germany. And women should wear the Vegas-style hats women in the region wore, which would make for a super interesting festival.
For those of you who have never had a sauerkraut ball, its an American invention. The closest thing you will find to the sauerkraut ball in Germanic Europe is the bitterballen in the Netherlands. But that is just breaded and deep fried gravy – it has no sauerkraut, cheese, but does have some meat bits.
Here’s where the contention comes in. Akron, Ohio, claims they invented the sauerkraut ball. The first reference to theirs comes in the 1960s. In Cincinnati, our restaurants like Mecklenburg Gardens and Lenhardt’s were already showing sauerkraut balls on their menus at least by the 1950s. And the Cincinnati Kraut ball is different from the Northern Ohio kraut ball by one very distinct ingredient – the addition of a creamy cheese. Interstate 275 is the demarcation line – sort of a Maginot Line – separating northern and southern Ohio sauerkraut balls. Above it you will find no creamy cheese inside.
The Germanic deep fried ball has taken a few fusion U-turns from the standard sauerkraut ball. Gliers and others serve up goetta balls. And there are some even more innovative restauranteurs that make Hanky Panky balls – which are ground beef and cheddar filled balls.
A good kraut ball has a good seasoned kraut (better to be finely shredded than large chunks) with some small meat bits – ham or bacon, and then a good melty creamy cheese. The breading should be not too thick, but dark brown and crunchy. A good size is about golf ball size. That makes it for a two bite affair if you’re dainty, and a decent one bite gobble if you’re not so dainty. One friend – an Italian – makes her sauerkraut balls larger, about racquetball sized, and I hate to say it – are the best damn German sauerkraut balls I’ve ever had. I guess their similarity to the Italian Arancini – the fried risotto ball – is similar so that the technique carries over into sauerkraut ball making.
And finally there’s the subject of what is an appropriate dippin’ sauce I like a good spicy ground mustard as the dipping sauce, or a good homemade curry sauce (not the gelatinous commercially made Currygewurz) like that made by Tuba Baking or the Lubecker.
Massmogge – Swiss hazelnut filled hard candies – the Grandfather of the filled strawberry and primrose red raspberry candies
Summer brings to mind old time treats to enjoy while taking a summer break. Some of the oldest American candies are hard candy flavored sticks and jelly filled hard candies. The filled strawberry, the primrose red raspberry filled candy, and even others like filled root beer barrels are the most recognized of these American standard old time candies. The origin of these candies come from the flavored candy stick, which birthed the Christmas Candy cane. And, oddly enough, their homeland is in northwest Switzerland at the Basel Fall Streetfairs.
The Herbstmesse, or Fall Street Fair, of Basel lasts for two weeks in late October into November. This tradition has been going on since 1471 and is spread over seven of the city’s squares and a hall at the trade fair center. Not only filled with rides, fun games, and entertainment, mysterious products, particularly food from foreign lands were and still are one of the big attractions.
One candy product that became a staple for the fair is what Baselers call “Mässmogge”. These colorful candies have a hard shell that hides a hazelnut paste filling consisting of roasted and ground hazelnuts, sugar, and some fat. The shells come in various flavors and colors, such as strawberry, chocolate, lemon, and many others. These were the first filled hard candies and are grandfather to our old time treats like the filled strawberry candy. Today, mässmogge make up for one-fifth of all the candy production in Switzerland. Other names and spellings for this candy include mässmögge, mässmocke, or messmocken.
According to consistent reports, two French sugar cookers from Lyon and Nancy offered their goods at the Basel Fair in the 1860s. Their elongated, thin stems made of boiled sugar porridge quickly became very popular. Because sugar was cheaper in France than in Switzerland at the time, the business paid off for the two sugar cookers. In addition to sugar, another ingredient played a central role in the success of the sugar stems of the time: the discovery of artificial food dyes in the second half of the 19th century. These colorful sugar sticks must have inspired the trade fair visitors at that time. The success of the sugar cookers naturally attracted imitators, so that from 1869 several French sugar cookers and confectioners offered sugar stems at the Basel fair. In order to be able to serve customers more quickly, resourceful confectioners came up with the idea of producing shorter and thicker stems. The stem became such a mogge and – as the legend goes – in 1879 a child ran home for the first time with the joyful cry: “Father, Muetter, lueget dä Mässmogge!”
At the turn of the century, the confectioner Leonz Goldinger, also from France, refined the glass moggs of the Basel Fall Fairs by pouring a hazelnut mass into the sugar stems. It was the birth of the stuffed mässmoggen.
It was these flavored, colored sugar sticks, glassmoggi, first shown at the Basel street fairs that would become the Christmas treat the candy cane. In antebellum America, pharmacies and general stores sold these flavored, dyed candy sticks. We added American flavors like horehound and root beer in addition to the popular peppermint flavor.
Who bent the ends to make them ‘canes’ is highly debated. One theory is that in 1670, a Catholic choirmaster in Cologne gave out pure white sugar sticks to the children as a way to soothe them during the long nativity ceremony. That choirmaster asked a local candy maker for each sugar stick to be turned into a hook to resemble the shape of a shepherd’s staff in the Christmas nativity story.
German immigrant August Imgard, credited with bringing the crooked white candy cane to America.
Another theory brings us to Wooster, Ohio. August Imgard was just 19 when he came to America in 1847 from Wetzlar, Hesse, Germany, about 30 miles north of Frankfurt. Living with an older brother named Frederick Imgard in Wooster, Ohio, August decorated a small blue spruce tree with white candy canes that he made from his mother’s recipe. The National Confectioners’ Association today gives Imgard the credit for being the first to crook the canes to hang them on a Christmas tree. We in America, later added the red stripe into the cane. The number, pattern and size of the stripes were the signature of the skill of the specific confectioner.
Our own oldest confectionery company in Cincinnati, Doscher’s was founded in 1871 by German immigrant Claus Doscher. He came from the town of Grossenheim, near Dresden, then in the Kingdom of Hanover. One of their first candy products was the striped candy cane, which they still make today in their Newtown candy factory.
Emil Richterich, inventor of the Ricola cough drop.
Before hard candy was a treat, it was how pharmacists integrated less-than-tasty ingredients into medicine. Even the most recognized throat lozenge, Ricola has roots directly south of Basel, in the town of Laufen. In 1930 Emil Richterich founded his company of specialty candy, inspired by the massmoggi and other sugar confections seen at the Basel street fairs. He experimented with the healing properties of herbs and came up with the 13 ingredient formula for Ricola, integrated into the signature square hard candy herb drop. In 1948 there were two Richterich confectioners in Laufen and Emil took the first syllable of his name and created the name and brand Ricola.
Although the Germans seem to have brought the candy cane to America, we can thank the Swiss of Basel for bringing us the idea for fruit & flavored gel-filled candies that descend from the French made sugar sticks which became the candy cane.
Every country seems to have their own version of the hot toddy, which is some sort of coffee or tea hot drink mixed with some sort of strong hooch added. Ireland has its Irish Coffee, New Orleans has its Cafe Brulee, Brazil has its chocolate liqueur-spiked Cafe Brasieliero. Many times it’s presented as a medicinal treatment. If that ailment is the need for a good morning or evening buzz, then yes , I agree it’s medicinal.
In the Rhineland there’s a very specific hot toddy native to the town of Rudesheim on the Rhine River in Germany. It’s a cute little winemaking town, known particularly for its Riesling wines, and has ancient wine cellars. The ruins of Ehrenfels Castle is visible near the town from the Rhine River. The Ehrenfelser grape variety is named after the castle, and is a cross between Riesling and Knipperle. The castle was built as a defense from the army of the Palatine Elector Henry V by the Archbishop of Mainz. The town also has a huge Germania statue overlooking the vineyards on the hill, and narrow streets. It even has a Baumstreitzel café – which are spit roasted confections usually filled with cream and coated in chocolate, nuts or sprinkles – commonly known in bakeries in Cincinnati as the cream horn. Tuba Baking in Dayton, Kentucky, is bringing the Baumstreitzel to Greater Cincinnati.
Rudesheimer Kaffee even has its own cup and saucer designed specifically for the drink. It was invented in 1957 by the German TV celebrity chef Hans Karl Adams, who, it is said, might have lifted it from his competitor – the TV Chef Carl Clemens Hahn, who invented beloved German dish Toast Hawaii. Apparently Germany was way ahead of American TV with their celebrity chefs. Even our Julia Child’s first TV appearance wasn’t until 1962.
The toddy starts with three sugar cubes and a dose of Asbach Uralt brandy. The sugar-brandy mix is lit until the sugar melts, and then strong coffee is added. It is then topped with a vanilla sugar cream and chocolate shavings.
Rudesheimer Kaffee being made and torched in a cafe in the town
The drink specifically uses Asbach Uralt brandy because it was created in the town of Rudeshaim in 1892 by Hugo Johann Uralt, who also invented the brandy-filled chocolate. Today the company Asbach GbMH, which is a subsidiary of Underberg AG, also makes other spirits and chocolate. Uralt originally called his distilled spirit Rudesheimer Cognac, until the World War I Treaty of Versailles stipulated that only products made in the French cognac districts could legally be called cognac. Hugo then invented the term Weinbrand or German brandy for his product.
So, the invention of this drink in 1957 made a brilliant tourist market for Asbach Uralt brandy, its chocolate, the specialized cup and saucer, and all the cafes in Rudesheim that serve this drink. The brandy is one of the most recognized in Germany, and it is also served as a brandy-and-coke cocktail, called a Futschi, especially in Berlin.
Joseph Ruh, fourth generation Baden Brewmaster of Heidelberg Brewery
Yesterday I posted the story behind Student Prince, the beer (from Columbia Brewery in Washington) and the American silent film of the same name which debuted in 1927. These were based on the Studencorps of Germanic university cities like Heidelberg. But our own local Heidelberg Brewery, which formed in Covington, Kentucky in 1933, when Prohibition was lifted, had a signature brand called Student Prince, also named after the 1927 silent movie, which also has some interesting stories associated with their unique labels. I’m not sure how they dealt with rights using a movie title, but entertainment laws weren’t so developed back then. I am sure Heidelberg didn’t pay any licensing fee to Metro Goldwyn Mayer. And this brand might be considered the first and only beer brand named after American Cinema. I challenge someone to find another such brand.
The sign for a Studentcorps bar in Heidelberg Germany on Haupstrasse, after which the American silent film Student Prince was based.The Student Prince chugging his first Heidelburg beer in the 1927 American silent film by the same name.
The first Student Prince brew from the new and modern Heidelberg Brewery, a sparkling Amber ale, came out 1933 and the label blazoned that it was done in Baden style. It’s not clear what this means, other than that the brewmaster, Joseph Ruh, was from a four generation brewing family from Baden. This is unique in Cincinnati and U.S. brewing history, and Joseph and his father were definitely unicorns, because, all other brewmasters came from one of the three Germanic brewing regions – Bavaria and Swabia in Southeastern Germany, or just north of there in Thuringia. Baden, in Southwest Germany, is in wine country of the Rhine River valley, and not considered a brewing mecca by any means.
The first ads for Student Prince called it the aristocrat of beverages, and the royalty of bottled beers. It was also described as a beer brewed for those who know good beer. The ad described a sparkling amber beer, made with oasted, or kiln dried hops, with a subtle hop flavor, and that it, despite the modern brewing equipment, was slowly aged in oak barrels.
Joseph’s father, Anton Ruh was born in Ehrenstetten, Baden in 1845, just on the edge of the Schwarzwald, or Black Forest, and just south of the Tuniberg and Kaisterstuhl wine making regions where my winemaking ancestors hailed. He worked as Brewmeister at Bavarian Brewery until his retirement in 1917, after which Joseph took over until Prohibition. Ferdinand Ruh was Anton’s father, and Johann Ferdinand Ruh was Anton’s grandfather, the originator of their beer recipes.
The Heidelberg Brewery building was considered a “compact brewery – five stories in height, with an original production capacity of 90,000 barrels annually, which was later increased to 125,00 barrels. As a newly built brewery, it had certain advantages over older breweries, including a more modern and streamlined design and electric and gas power instead of coal and steam. However, it also had some disadvantages. There was no rail spur into the brewery and rail access was not exceptionally close, creating higher transportation costs for beer exported outside of the Cincinnati area. Also, its production capabilities were relatively low for the time, making it more costly to operate, and there was no adjacent, excess land that could be used for an expansion. Further, its location was only a few blocks from the Ohio River, which was susceptible to spring floods. In fact, only three years after the brewery opened, the Great Flood of 1937 damaged Heidelberg’s aging tanks and ruined much of its stored grains, preventing production for several months.
Student Prince was offered as both a “Black Label” (Lager) – introduced in May of 1935 – with a more mild Blue Label lager, a “White Label” (Pilsener), as well as the original Red Label sparkling amber ale. The brewer also brewed Bay Horse Ale and two other beers; a lager known as Heidelberg (or Heidelberg’s) and a Pilsner called Heirloom of Bäden (also known as Bäden or Heirloom Beer), which won a gold medal in Paris during 1939.
The label of Heirloom of Baden is one of the most unique American beer label for several reasons. It showed an old German man in flat cap and explained that this was from a four generation Baden recipe from the Ruh family and signed by Joseph Ruh, Brewmeister. This may be the only American beer label that acknowledges the brewmaster. Perhaps the old man on the label was meant to be an image of that fourth generation Ruh Brewmeister, Johann Ferdinand Ruh. It also acknowledges Heidelberg’s castle. On the right side of the image of the old Germanic man is an image, oddly enough, of the world’s largest wine barrel in the wine cellar of the old Heidelberg Castle. Near the wine barrel in the Heidelberg Castle is a statue of the castle’s court jester, Perkeo, who also has a gastatte or beer and wine house in old town Heidelberg named after him. The top of this enormous wine barrel was a dance floor for the court of Heidelberg and today tourists can climb to the top of it and explore this dance floor. Perhaps the label designer didnt know this was a wine barrel, not a beer barrel, or perhaps they showed the wine barrel because they also bragged that their beers were aged in wooden casks and the connection to the castle evoked their high end quality of royalty, princeliness, and aristocracy. And who would know it was a wine barrel unless they had visited the castle as a tourist and that was a super-small percentage of their beer-drinking demographic.
The world’s largest wine barrel shown on Heidelburg’s Heirloom of Baden Beer label – in the basement of Heidelberg Castle.The dance floor on top of the giant wine barrel in Heidelberg Castle.The wine cellar of Heidelberg Castle in GermanyPerkeo the jester of the Heidelberg court.View of the Neckar River from the top of Heidelberg Castle.
Bock Beer was also offered seasonally, in springtime. All of these brands were offered as draft in kegs and pasteurized in bottles; some were also offered as draft in bottles, unpasteurized. Despite being a small brewer, Heidelberg had more varieties of beers and ales than the larger local brewers, and even most national brewers. Both Student Prince and Heirloom beer brands were offered at Crosley field and advertised on the outfield wall there in the late 40s.
Heidelberg Brewery’s draft taps.
The flood of 1937 might have been the nail in the coffin unfortunately for Heidelberg. After recovering production from the flood, they agreed to make beer for other manufacturers, which would give them lower profit margins and cut into their own capacity. As larger more modern breweries came on line after World War II, Heidelburg’s small capacity and the inability to expand at their site would have put them at a disadvantage. Also, Joseph Ruh, and his two sons, Carl and Anthony, the fifth generation of Baden unicorn brewers, resigned in 1946 over squabbles in operation. Carl would become one of Kentucky’s State Senators and run a brewery supply business. Bavarian Brewery acquired Heidelburg’s plant in 1949, not buying any of the brands. Heirloom was purchased and brewed by South Bethlehem Brewing in Pennsylvania and the famed Student Prince Brand was retired.
The 1910s ad for Alt Heidelberg Beer showing scenes from the Studentcorps of Heidelberg, including their Mensurs or fencing matches.
I’ve really enjoyed going to Brewery Collectible shows for about the last five years. I’m almost an exclusive collector of our local Bruckmann Brewery and have built up an impressive collection. During that time I’ve seen labels for Alt Heidelberg Beer and its mascot Student Prince from the Columbia Brewing Company in Tacoma, Washington. I like the graphics and the Student Prince logo and knew there was probably a good German story behind the logo and beer, but since it wasn’t in my collecting focus, I never pursued the ‘rest of the story.’
A sign for an old Studentcorps beerstube in Heidelburg on Hauptstrasse.A photo of a studencorps member in the same pose as the beerstube signA studentcorps Mensur or fencing match.
That was until I visited the city of Heidelberg as an excursion on a Rhine River cruise I just returned from. While taking a tour of Hauptstrasse, the main drag through Old Heidelburg, I was photographing the amazingly beautiful old signs above bars, restaurants, and shops along the street. We passed a place called the Ox, which supposedly Marilyn Monroe had eaten at. But next to it was a great sign over an old beerstube showing a young man in a militaristic uniform holding a fencing sword. I recognized the image as a member of the Studentcorps and snapped a quick shot as our tour guide passed it without explanation.
I remembered seeing a documentary which explained that these Studentcorps groups were common at large city universities like Heidelburg, Bonn, and others. They had fencing groups and didn’t use visors protecting the face. During the fencing matches they called Mensur, they would cut each other on the cheek and these scars would be a badge of courage and mark of their class an honor, being able to handle taking the pain of these cuts. These scars, called Schmitte or bragging scars were considered sexy by women among the upper class Germans and Austrians, starting as early as 1825.
A studentcorps member with a Schmitte – braggin scar, from one of their fencing duels.Movie poster for silent film Student Prince in 1927
In 1903 a play called Alt Heidelburg opened that became popular in America . The main character was the Student Prince. It was made into an operetta in 1924 and then an American silent movie of the same name by filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch , and starring Ramon Navarro and Norma Schearer. It’s about a crown prince from a fictional German kingdom who goes to Heidelberg and joins one of the studentcorps, falls in love with a barmaid , but leaves her to return to his kingdom to accept his princely duties. The movie – which is very German – became very popular despite the anti-German sentiment after World War I, but features scenes of mass student drinking. Navarro also played the first Ben Hur and there’s a biography of his life called Beyond Paradise by Andres Soures. During the movie Navarro smiles extensively and the beer hall scenes with his fellow Studentcorps students evoke a sense of fun, gemutlichkeit and male bonding.
Beer hall scene from Student PrinceScene from Student Prince
Alt Heidelburg beer was a pale beer introduced by German immigrant Emile Kliese, who was the owner and head brewmaster of Columbia Brewing Company in Tacoma, Washington. The early labels of Alt Heidelburg show scenes of these Studentcorps and their fencing. It’s apparent that someone in the brewery marketing team, perhaps Kliese himself, had been a member of the Heidelburg Studentcorps and knew the culture, which would give this beer brand a premium feel, being good enough for the elitist university Studentcorps.
Group photo of brewers at Columbia Brewery, founder Emile Kliese is seated in beard and hat
Prohibition shut the Columbia Brewery down, but they produced soft drinks like Chocolate Soldier, birch beer, cider, and Golden Foam, a near beer. Emile died in 1918 and his family sold their shares to Columbia Brewery in 1921 to the Hemrich brothers. Elmer Hemrich took over the brewing, reinstating the Alt Heidelberg 3.2% beer in 1933. He chose the theme of the Studentcorps as Kliese’s 1910s labels showed, but he chose a new mascot, the Student Prince, at the suggestion of Otto Birkmaier, Columbia’s brewmaster, after the popular 1927 movie. Hemrich employed Birkmaiers brother-in-law, sculptor Karl Biber to create a frieze of the Student Prince over his new Brew House door. Student Prince was a very recognizable social character to connect to the brewery and they used him on labels, giveaways and ads and promotional materials even after World War II, again despite the national anti-German sentiment.
Hemrich’s 1933 labelStudent Prince ad from the 1940s
Columbia was sold in 1958 to Carling Breweries, and Heidelburg remained their best seller. The Columbia Brewery closed its doors in 1979 after 75 years, and in 2011 the entire brewing complex was demolished, erasing all remnants of Tacoma’s brewery district. Cincinnati is lucky to have a large portion of our pre Prohibition brewery buildings in tact in our Brewery District. And, we are one of the only cities in America that offers underground tours of the network of lagering cellars several stories below street level.
It’s taken me nearly twenty years, but I have now linked all my Germanic ancestors to their original town and region of the former Germanic kingdoms. Starting in Gdansk, Poland, former Ostprussia, and going due west through Mecklenburg to the Easternmost province of the Netherlands, Gelderland, and then following the Rhine River its entire length through the Saarland and Baden Wuertemburg to Basel, Switzerland, the arc of my Germany ancestors’ villages makes sort of a giant “C” across today’s Germany.
As a food geek I’m interested in the regional foods in each area. One of the dishes that each region has is their own soup, built on the locally grown and seasonal vegetables and sometimes local meat or fish bits as well.
Starting in Gdansk, Poland, there are ten soups that represent my family ancestry, some of which we still eat today here in the U.S. They are all comforting, foods of the people, and easy to make with what you have on hand in your kitchen garden or the scraps from the manor house. Some are simple, some are a bit more complex, but they all represent the area and the people.
My Grandmother’s Muchorowski family came to America in the 1880s from a village outside of the city of Gdansk, called Stary Targ. They were German-speaking Catholics, daylaborers, who also spoke Polish. The soup native to their region is called kapusniak. This Polish Sauerkraut Soup is sometimes done with vegetable stock, sometimes chicken, even pork broth in some variations. You can make it with fresh cabbage or pickled kraut. Some, like our local Izzy’s Deli, makes a “hot & sour soup” version with beef bits. I like Izzy’s hot and sour version myself.
Souljaka soup.
Mecklenburg, the duchy where in 1855 my Woellert and Burchard paternal relatives came has a Russian influenced seafood soup called Souljanka. They were carpenters and joiners there in Penzlin, Mecklenburg. Being so close to the Baltic sea and in an area of many lakes, it includes usually some type of whitefish like herring. It also includes mushrooms, pickled cucumbers, dill, olives, potatoes cabbage and sometimes other shellfish in a sweet and sour rich beef broth. It’s sort of like an Eastern European version of San Francisco’s cioppino.
Moving west from Mecklenburg into Westphalia is the land where my paternal great grandmother’s Henke family originated and immigrated in the 1840s. For several centuries they were farmers, with side hustle of shoemakers and tailors. The soup native to this region that made it with immigrants to Cincinnati was the tangy turtle and mock turtle soups that we know and love. Stenger and Worthmore competed in Cincinnati for over 50 years like Coke and Pepsi for the stronghold of Cincinnati’s mock turtle market. Worthmore won that battle and is now the only commercial producer of Mock Turtle soup.
Dutch snert or pea soup
Next to the Dutch province of Gelderland in the cities of Vorden and Hengelo is where my maternal Grandmother’s Reinzen and Jansen families left in 1846 to New Orleans and up the Mississippi to Newport, Kentucky. There are two soups in this area – Mosterdsoep – mustard soup, and Snert, split pea soup.
Mosterdsoep is a traditional Dutch soup made with a combination of flour, butter, stock, cream, leeks, and coarse grain mustard (preferably Groningse or Zaanse mosterd). This soup is a specialty of Groningen. If desired, bacon and white wine can be added to the soup for extra flavor. Groninger mustard only uses black mustard seeds and is ground quite coarse, which gives it the typical spicy flavour and full body.
De Huisman mustard mill (windmilled, not watermilled) has been making Dutch mustard for 4 generations in the Zaanse neighborhood of Zaandam, famous for their historic, well preserved windmills and houses. This fine, creamy Dutch mustard goes perfectly with a hearty cheese and meats.
Snert is a traditional Dutch soup made with split peas, vegetables, and pork. Its texture is so thick that a spoon should be able to remain in an upright position when placed in the middle of the cooking pot, so snert is often made a day in advance, then reheated the next day.
The soup is a wintertime staple in the Netherlands, and it’s traditionally served on New Year, with Gelderland smoked rookworst sausage and Dutch rye bread on the side. There are endless variations on the dish and all of the family recipes vary slightly.
My mother’s split pea and ham soup is definitely thick enough to hold a spoon upright and is one of my favorite soups. She usually made it after Easter with the leftover meat on the bone of spiral cut ham. My update to her pea soup is the addition of tobacco sauce for some kick.
Moving down the Rhine River to Saarland, is the land of my paternal grandmother’s families of Schoesser, Gehring and Scharold, who came to Newport, Kentucky, from the 1860s to the 1880s. Here the local soup is a green bean soup called Bibbelchesbohnesupp. The soup is made with a combination of green beans, bacon, onions, potatoes, vegetable stock, sour cream, parsley, salt, and black pepper. After strips of bacon and onions are sauteed, and then the beans potatoes, are cooked, half of the soup is pureed and mixed with sour cream and mixed with the chunky parts. It’s seasoned with salt and pepper and garnished with parsley.
Baden snail soup.
Moving down the Rhine River south to the state of Baden-Wurtemburg, where my maternal Grandmother’s Barmann, Krebs, and Weismann family originated, is a soup that starts with a symbiotic animal that lives in the vineyards. It’s the local schnecken or snail. Unlike in Cincinnati, where schnecken is an ooey-gooey cinnamon bun type of confection, snails in Baden are the chewy delicacy that is getting harder and harder to find in local restaurants. It’s called Badischer Schneckensuppe, and is a creamy soup made with carrots, leeks, onions and porcini mushrooms, creme fraiche, eggs, butter, seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper, parsley and nutmeg and finally local white wine – like Riesling or Muller-Thurgau.
Moving further south to the end of the Rhine around Basel, Switzerland in the small town south of there called Breitenbach is the origin my paternal grandmother’s Brosey family, who came in the early 1820s. This is in the canton or state of Solothurn. Here there are two soups native to the area. One is called Soleduner Wysuppli or Solothurn Wine Soup. The soup starts with a base of chicken stock leeks, carrots, and eggs mixed with local white wine and cream topped with chives and chopped hazelnuts.
The second soup is Mehlsuppe or flour soup, which is more like a thick gravy. I had it in Basel at a local restaurant and it’s very flavorful. It uses a beef stock, butter, sauteed onion, red wine, and a grated Swiss cheese like gruyere.
Spargel or white asparagus soup.
One soup is present in all of the areas and is a spring seasonal soup called Spargel suppe– the beloved white asparagus soup. It is creamy like the Campbell’s Cream of Asparagus soup we grew up on but is varied by the toppings – which may include sour cream, creme fraiche, bacon bits, and in Amsterdam – roasted peanuts, which I think is pure genius.
Blue Rock and Cheviot 150+ years apart – Fridolin Gutzwillers saloon on the left, Grace of India on the right
The community of White Oak which spans both Green and Colerain Townships in Cincinnati has a very Germanic past. The local histories say that many coopers came here because of the prevalence of white oak trees, the best tree to make barrels that held liquids like beer or wine. But if we dig deeper, we find a colorful mostly Catholic community, made up of both Germanic immigrants from southern Baden Germany, and its neighbor across the border, Switzerland – specifically the cantons of Basel and Solothurn.
The community in the 1840s was called St. Jacobs, after the first Catholic Church there, which is now St. James White Oak. For a few years it was also called Creedville, after one of the postmaster, and then by the 1880s it was known as White Oak. The area was originally almost completely Catholic, and all went to the St. James parish. Many of the farmers of the area owned businesses who catered to the village residents. There were two taverns on Cheviot road whose owners were members of St. James – one was owned by Baden immigrant Fred Schmelzle, who built it in 1856. The other was owned by Swiss immigrants Fridolin and Therese Gutzwiller. One can imagine the Badeners of St. James going to Schmelzle’s Tavern, and the Swiss immigrants going to Gutzwillers. They both spoke the similar sudallemaine and schweizerdeutch German dialects.
At the entrance to White Oak from the East is the historic intersection of what was then Burnt Schoolhouse Road, now Cheviot Road, and Blue Rock. In the 1850s, it housed the two story brick house that was owned by Swiss immigrants Fridolin Gutzwiller and his wife, Therese Hauser.
Fridolin was from a village called Therwil, just south of the city of Basel on the Rhine River. Therese was from a smaller village to the southeast of Therwil called Aesch in the canton of Solothurn. The Hauser and Gutzwiller families knew each other in Switzerland. There was a third family, the Joseph Brosi/Brosey family from the village of Breitenbach, who had come to Cincinnati earlier, in the 1820s and set up a vineyard and farm in the Dent area. The Hauser family lived with them at their Dent farm in the 1860s. Fridolin’s brother Vincent married Theresa’s sister Mary Hauser. Before marrying, Mary sang and entertained at Fridolin’s saloon. She probably sang Swiss folksongs and performed folk dances for the customers. With the Swiss and family connection to the Broseys- they probably served his wine, which he made in the 1850s and 1860s on the order of several hundred gallons annually. They also probably served locally made meats and Swiss style cheeses they were familiar with back home. Another local delicacy was Solothurner Wine Soup – made with local wine, beans, carrots, onions and sprinkled with hazlenuts.
Solothurn Wine Soup – a local delicacy around Basel Switzerland.Riester’s Tavern, built in the 1850s by the Schmelzle family.
The Schmelzle tavern was sold to Charles Mohrmeyer by 1899, and then by the 1920s to Edward and Catherine Riester who changed the name to Riester’s Tavern, the name locals knew it by before it was demolished in 2017. Stories say that in 1866, when a cyclone blew off the roof of St. James Church, services were held in the tavern until the church could be repaired.
Bibeleskase, a local Baden cheese dip.
In addition to serving Baden foods like biebeleskase – a savory cheese dip, the Schmelzle tavern probably sold wine made by Joseph Siefert, a Baden immigrant who owned a vineyard on Burnt Schoolhouse road down the street from the tavern in what was then called Weisenburg, now Monfort Heights. Siefert was a stone mason, politician, vineyardist and farmer. He had built, among other structures one of Nicholas Longworth’s Wine Houses. He grew Ives, Catawba, and other native grapes on his land and had a large two story brick house for his large extended family – 5 kids and the four sons of his brother. His only son Charles tended a peach orchard on site. The house looks remarkably similar to the Fridolin Gutzwiller house and saloon – so, it’s possible that it was built by the same builder. The Siefert home would become a Niedhard funeral home in its later years before being demolished for modern subdivisions.
Joseph Siefert, Baden immigrant winemaker of Monfort HeightsAn image of Joseph Siefert’s large brick house on Cheviot Road, looks remarkably similar to Fridolin Gutzwiller’s Saloon.
Joseph Siefert was a very socially active man and there are many snippets about his antics in the Enquirer. One of the things he was known to bring to any party or event was his ‘lemonade without water’, which was Ives wine mixed with lemonade. This is one of the most common drinks in Baden at summer wine gardens and is known as a ‘schorle.’ The Baden Germans like to mix wine and fruit juice with fizzy lemonade or sparkling water in the summer for a refreshing, but not highly intoxicating drink.
A Baden rotweinschorle, like Joseph Siefert’s Ives Wine “Lemonade”.
Today, both taverns are gone. But a building on the site of Gutzwiller’s Tavern houses the Grace of India restaurant, which instead of raclette cheese, serves paneer dishes, and instead of Badenischer weinschorle serves lassi.
Jules-Emil Planchon – French Entemologist who visited Westwood and Clifton in 1873 to inspect our vineyards.
In 1873, the French and Central European wine industries were in real peril. A blight had been affecting vineyards in the Rhone Valley and was spreading. The French Ministry of Agriculture and Economoics sent the entomologist Jule-Emil Planchon to the United States in the late summer of 1873 to visit phyloxerra resistant vineyards. His visit included sites in Baltimore, South Carolina, Cincnnati, Sandusky, and St. Louis, Missouri. By that time he had been studying the disastrous blight on grapevines spreading like the plague throughout Europe for six years. He had isolated the blight to a small orange mite called phylloxera that sucked the vines’ roots like a subterranean vampire and killed the plant. He had suspected and nearly proved that the mites had come along as stowaways on American native Vitus Labrusca vines that had been sent to France in the 1860s.
The first thing Planchon noted about Cincinnati, when he arrived on September 15 was the grapes being sold on the street corners of Cincinnati – the Concord at 15 cents a bunch and the Delaware, at even less. He thought Cincinnati was very smoky and thought third street was nice. He did say that Cincinnati seemed to be devoid of large public monuments. Clearly he did not get the chance to see our fabulous German designed Genius des Wassers – the Tyler Davidson Fountain – which had been installed only two years prior to Planchon’s visit. Finally he noted the many Germans in Cincinnati, who had “more vivacity on their faces than the Yankees of the Northeast.” Well, that’s because they were probably under the influence of wine or beer.
Planchon sought out Robert Buchanan, who had recently written his The Culture of the Grape and Winemaking, which was an international manual on modern winemaking in America. Our once Wine King Nicholas Longworth had been dead for 10 years and his Longworth Wine House was closed by his grandson, Anderson in 1869. Planchon had taken numerous notes on Cincinnati’s wine industry from Buchanan’s book before landing on the Ohio, so he was super-fanning it. Robert Buchanan had been growing grapes on his estate in Clifton since the 1840s. They talked about the local summer grape rot phenomenon, and the decline in productivity in Catawba vineyards locally for the last 20 years. Planchon had suspected the Catawba Crash in Cincinnati was due to the little orange mite phylloxera ravaging French vineyards. Buchanan had never heard of this mite. Cincinnatians attributed the catawba crash to bad weather and had not isolated it to the mites like France had. When Planchon later graded what American rootstocks were most phylloxera resistant, he graded Catawba and Isabella and Delaware the worst, which coincides with their crash in Cincinnati. It also appeared that vineyards planted in sandy soil were phylloxera resistant, so that also explains while some Cincinnati Catawba vineyards survived the crash.
Buchanan took Planchon to westwood to meet Michael Werk, and his son Emile, from Alsace. Planchon was impressed with the extensive wine cellars of the Werks on today’s Werk Road and his healthy 65 acre vineyards. Planchon called their operation a Champagne operation, but their taste was more like the sparkling wines made outside of the champagne region. He noted that the Werks had achieved international acclaim by receiving a first honorable mention for their Golden Eagle Sparkling Catawba Wines at the 1867 Paris Exposition. The Werk’s wines were the only Cincinnati wines mentioned by the French at that exposition. William Flagg, Nicholas Longworth’s son-in-law had been a judge and part of the American delegation to accompany our American wines to the exhibition. He also noted that the Werk’s owned a large 400 acre vineyard in Vermillion, Ohio, on the south shore of Lake Erie, which fed their large winehouse on Middle Bass Island called Werk, Wehrle and Sons. Planchon was also impressed by the Werk’s horse drawn bottle washing machine.
Planchon left Cincinnati and visited Sandusky, Ohio to see the Lake Erie wine cellars of the German Thomas Rush, but not the Werk’s large operation on Middle Bass Island. His report on his US visit was published in 1875 and became a bestseller in France. The French would eventually import Texas grape vines from America and graft their vines onto these rootstock to save their industry from total ruin. So you can say all European wines are actually American wines.
Over the weekend I went to a Trailer Park Murder Mystery party. I guess you might consider it one of the most unPC themed parties, if we weren’t all sort of poking fun at ourselves. Everyone was assigned a character that had not really made good decisions and was a murder suspect. Mullets, dye-jobs, leapord print, NASCAR wear and T- Shirts with offensive sayings like “Save a Horse, Ride a Cousin,” were abound. We all were encouraged to bring appropriate Trailer Park food or the more PC term – Mobile Home Gourmet.
And, although the folks we were emulating are considered by many as country, backwoods, and unrefined, the funny thing is that the food many consider low-brow is actually the comfort food we all like and grew up eating. It seems we all have a bit of trailer park, hillbilly, redneck, hayseed, hick, bumpkin, or yokel in us.
There have been many comedians like Jeff Foxworthy who have capitalized on the hillbilly and redneck ethos. They’re now called Blue Collar Comedians.
There’s even a famous Trailer Park Cookbook written in 1982 by Ernest Matthew MIckler that includes over 200 recipes from West Virginia to Key West. There are recipes for possum, squirrel, and turtle – meats you won’t find in your local Kroger meat counter.
The cheap snack foods of the past, things our grandparents ate, like pickled eggs, pickled pigs feet, and headcheese, are all part of that culinary history. The cheap convenience foods of my youth – jarred tamales, canned Vienna sausages, SPAM, and braunschweiger spread – all could be considered part of this low-brow hillbilly food.
Meanwhile, at the Murder Mystery party, there was the obligatory jello salad with entombed mini-marshmallows. But who doesn’t like a good ambrosia salad or my fave, the orange cream sickle jello salad from my 1970s youth. There was a plethora of moonpies, Little Debbie and hostess snack cakes. There was a tator tot casserole, a variety of dips including pimento cheese, a Buttig beef encrusted cheeseball, chicken wings, baked beans, pigs-in-a-blanket, and bacon wrapped smokies. There was of course Cincinnati’s contribution to low brow foods – Hanky Panky. You will see Hanky Panky as an appetizer at legacy West Side Steakhouse, Maury’s Tiny Cove. I wouldn’t turn my nose up to any of these delicacies.
It’s interesting to note that our beloved Cincinnati Goetta in Germany is called “arme leute essen,” or poor people’s food. Gruetzwurst or grain sausage, the family to which Goetta belongs, is certainly the last thing made at the time of slaughter to extend and use every part of the pig.
One of the interesting “trailer park desserts” at the party was one I’d never heard of was called Velveeta Fudge. Yes, that’s right, it was a brownie fudge that contained Velveeta cheese.
Necessity is the mother of invention and using cheaper versions of fats was one of the things home cooks of limited means during the Depression and War Years came up with. Other items like the Vinegar Pie and Red Eye Gravy, were also a part of this limited ingredients frugality.
Velveeta is not really a cheese, but a pasteurized cheese product, brought to the American market in 1918. It was named because it had a velvety, consistent texture when melted. It became the standard for macaroni, grilled cheese, and other melty American cheese dips. It even became one of the primary ingredients in Cincinnati Hanky Panks. But around the Depression, some innovative and frugal home cook decided it would be good as the fat in fudge, perhaps when Crisco or lard rendered from cooked meats was at a scarcity. I heard from tasters at the party that the flavor was good but it had a weird-ish texture.
Another cheap fat that was integrated into American baking during the same period was mayonnaise. Adding a small amount of mayo to a cake became a hack for more expensive fats. This mayo trick works especially well with chocolate cakes, which can easily become dense. The extra oil adds tenderness to the cake crumb and the vinegar found in mayonnaise actually works to enhance the flavor. The acidity offsets the sweetness and makes the chocolate sing.
So if we unpack what is associated with Hillbilly Cuisine, we see both innovation and comfort. These are the things growing American families used to stretch a budget, while also making something memorable and delicious.
dannwoellertthefoodetymologist 