Beyond Bratwurst

Ursula Heinzelmann is the author of Food Culture in Germany (2008) and a regular contributor to Slow Food and Gastronomica among other publications. She trained as a professional chef and holds a sommelier diploma from Hotelfachschule Heidelberg. She lives in Berlin.

Shortlisted for Fortnum & Mason Food Book of the Year, 2015 - AwardShortlisted for Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year, 2015 - AwardThis superb, thoughtful history of German food cuts through the clichés of Oktoberfest beer and pretzels. - Sunday Times Food Books of the Year 2014Ursula Heinzelmann’s cultural history of Germany as viewed through the lens of food is as solid as a loaf of rye and yet as light as a Sekt mousse, as moreish as a Bahlsen Leibniz biscuit and as bemusing as a Niederegger marzipan potato. Packing her book with fascinating detail for the historian, gourmet or traveller, Heinzelmann has an eye for a good story and compassionate approach to culinary developments in what we now call Germany, from 500 BC to the present day . . . the images collected by Heinzelmann make the book as aesthetically pleasing as it is informative. - TLSThere is more to German food than sausage, as Heinzelmann explains in her splendid history. - Daily TelegraphAs a serious history of food in Germany, Beyond Bratwurst offers an illuminatory (and comprehensive) overview of a remarkably flexible culinary tradition through which eighty-two million people have, over the centuries, reconciled their differences in geography, climate, history and culture. - Elisabeth Luard, The OldieA new book on the history of German food arrived in my mailbox the other day . . . I picked it up, poured a glass of Riesling and started leafing through it. Before long, I was hooked . . . Through the pages of this clearly written and well-organized history, we can follow the craze for coffee and then sugar . . . And who knew that in America, until the end of the Civil War, itinerant krauthobblers, cabbage-shredders, went from door to door slicing cabbage for homemade sauerkraut? Heinzelmann knows that and much much more. - Los Angeles TimesBeyond Bratwurst is an important contribution to the history of German food . . . an excellent book . . . beautifully printed on heavy paper with dozens of color and black-and-white illustrations, as well as extensive footnotes and a very good bibliography. It is a thorough, well researched, and very readable work that is destined to become an important reference for historians. Highly recommended to anyone interested in Germany, culinary history, or social history in general. - German Life Magazinean essential work for anyone interested in German foods and cooking and how they have developed through time. - German Cookbook ReviewReaktion Books continues to expand its presence in the world of food studies with a new series,Foods & Nations. Its first two titles relate to Germany and Italy, both are worth the purchase and your close attention. Nicely produced, with Reaktion’s usual attention to the melding of words and image, they will each provide a thought-provoking launchpad for the curious . . . The great quality of this book is the humane education of its author which allows wide terms of reference and plenty of allusive comment. She is also very revealing about the spread of German food beyond its borders, particularly in the United States. %e whole subject is one that has been rarely addressed and the books importance is therefore redoubled. - Petits Propos CulinairesHeinzelmann goes into great detail throughout her 345-page anthology, demonstrating that Germans have been adaptable, deprived, and struggling in times of war, but resilient in the times afterwards in developing and maintaining German food culture. While it may be hard to pinpoint a German national dish or shake the public opinion that German food only consists of beer, pretzels, and sausage, Heinzelmann’s anthology illustrates that the complicated history of German foodways consists of so much more. The book is a must-read for graduate students interested in food culture and history, as well as for food historians and anthropologists, as it dives so deeply into the German people and why they eat what they choose to eat. - Food, Culture and History