German "fest food" query
 

Hello All,

Some of you are of German ancestry, and/or you live in states where Oktoberfest is celebrated widely. I am writing here to ask about a German "festival food" that I saw briefly on the big TV set in the waiting room at one of my clinics. Its name was given, but unfortunately I didn't catch it, but it looked so good that I'd like to try making it, if I could just get its name so that I could look up recipes for it online. It was made the following way:

This mass-produce-able (rather like funnel cake, which is easy to prepare by the pound at fairs and festivals!) German food is about 120 years old, and it too is easy to prepare quickly in large quantities. It's made with rather thin-sliced (1/8" or a bit more thick) white or Russet potatoes, chopped bacon and chopped sausage (and possibly diced tomatoes as well, but I'm not sure), and:

An unusual ingredient, which gives it a uniquely satisfying flavor, is ordinary white table sugar, which is sprinkled generously over the other ingredients and caramelizes when this food is cooked over a fire (traditionally, it's cooked on a chain-suspended iron plate above the fire). Does this German festival food "ring a bell" with any of you? I'd love to make small batches of it (I could probably do it on my electric stove), if I could learn its name and find recipes for it.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help!

The mention of potatoes, bacon and vinegar makes it sound very much like German potato salad.

My wife always makes it when she serves Polish sausage. Unlike regular potato salad, it is served hot.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/...lad-recipe.html

Doug...descendant of Scrubby Dutch ( Deutsche ) ancestors....

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I'm of 80%+ German ancestry and the only thing this sounds like is hot German Potato Salad.
Frankenmuth (little Bavaria) is a town that is only 30 miles away from my hometown.
I go there at least once a month for their awesome 7-course all-u-can-eat German Fried Chicken dinners.
It is about $20/person for all-white-meat and worth every penny. Although it is all you can eat, they let you take home all the leftovers too. Naturally I re-order everything just before leaving to take some home.
Their dinners include Chicken noodle soup, Pate and Cheese spreads with Garlic toast, Stollen (fruit Bread with homemade preserves, Cranberry/Apple Salad, German spicy cole-slaw, Hot buttered noodles with pastry crust, Home made Stuffing, Mashed potatoes/gravy, Vegetable of the day (usually glazed carrots or green beans with bacon), thin-battered Fried Chicken, and dessert.
For an extra $2/person you can add Sauerbraten or Wienerschnitzel.
NONE of it has any stinkin' Kraut, nor do they even serve that crap either.

Agree Frankenmuth is awesome...

Went there with the Eula (MIL), Betty, Melinda (niece), and Keira... WONDERFUL food! Only thing missing was some good sauerkraut!!! LOL:)

They really loved the Christmas store as well.

Need to go back up there one of these days... Maybe this summer...

Later! OL J R :)

Doug and GH, it definitely wasn't hot potato salad (although that recipe looks very good, too--Thank You, Doug, for posting it!). It had a German name for which there is no exact English equivalent, and (unlike with the hot potato salad recipe, in which some of the ingredients are partially prepared separately, before combining all of them) it was rapidly cooked over a fire, with all of its ingredients combined on the iron plate--the white sugar was added last, sprinkled atop the other ingredients. (It may also have had sour cream as an ingredient, as well as the other ingredients I listed in the initial posting.) Once the batch of it was ready, it was served--by itself, as it constituted a small meal in itself--in unfold-able cardstock "boat" 'bowls' (four-sided 'bowls' with inward-sloping sides--the same type often used for serving French Fries and Onion Rings at diners and fairs). Also:

Frankenmuth, Michigan sounds like Helen, Georgia (a Blue Ridge Mountains town not far from where I lived between Young Harris and Hiawassee), which saved itself from oblivion by re-making itself as a Bavarian mountain town. They have restaurants, ice cream parlors, and candy shops that offer German fare.

The closest thing that comes to mind is Himmel und Erde.
Saures Kartoffelgemüse is a sweet and sour potato dish, but I don't think it's usually fried.
You're more likely to find some sort of potato pancake (Kartoffelpuffer or Reibekuchen) at a typical fest.

kj

Thank you. "Himmel and Erde" is--in English--"Heaven and Earth"; I like that name! Sweet and sour in a potato dish sounds very good, and I love potato latkes (potato pancakes), too.

Thankfully in all the many meals I have had in Frankenmuth at Zehnder's and Bavarian Inn over the years, I have never had ANY form of any KRAUT on my plate, nor have I even caught a whiff of that stuff there.
They don't serve or use it that I know of at all.
I used to go up there about once every 6 weeks back when I was married from 2001 to 2010 as my then wife could not get enough of Zehnder's.
My girlfriend of the past 5 years went there far too often as a child (every other weekend on their way up to their "up north" cottage) so she won't go more than 3-4 times a year.
I can't get her to even step foot into the "Turkey Roost" restaurant in Kawkawlin, nor the Williams or Wilson's Cheese factories/stores in Pinconning for the same reason....too much time spent as a child.

Schwäbischer Zwiebelkuchen
 

Hey J. I think you are looking for Schwäbischer Zwiebelkuchen: this is like a German breakfast pie, with a bottom crust and eggs, cream, potatoes, wurst or bacon, onions and Emmenthaler Cheese.
I had this for brunch at the Palm Beach German American Club in Lantana.
I have to agree with G.H. there is no other place like Frankinmouth. I can not go back home without a trip to eat chicken and drink some local beer. although my drive is like 1500 miles