FOR BETTER, FOR WURST

A new book promises to change the way you think about German cooking

IF YOUR GRASP of German cuisine stretches to bratwurst and... err... pretzels, the excellently named food writer Anja Dunk would love to put you straight. ‘I strongly disagree,’ she stresses in her new cookbook, ‘with the bad reputation that German food has overseas.’ If strudel is the extent of our Bavarian baking nous (and even that recipe originated in Austria), we’re missing out on rye and apple cakes, the rich yeasted gugelhupf in its sculptural bundt mould, and spiced buns enriched with eggs and butter. And way beyond sauerkraut and schnitzel, there are gastronomic influences from the Mediterranean and Scandinavia, north Africa and Turkey – whose doner kebabs now rival the wurst as a national snack.

In Strudel, Noodles & Dumplings (4th Estate, £26), Dunk explores a delicious culinary heritage taught to her by the German side of her family. She was brought up in Wales (as well as in Africa and Asia) by her Welsh father and German mother, but recalls her Omi’s (grandmother’s) utilitarian kitchen stocked to the hilt with jams and pâtés, and the supplies of salami and sweets her maternal grandparents brought in the car with them on visits. ‘We passed the bundles to each other along the driveway to the kitchen table,’ Dunk remembers.

She shares recipes that were favourites at that table, and her own – now surrounded by three sons. So there’s the speedy apple pound cake she missed most after leaving home, and a yellow split-pea soup which these days brings a rush of gemütlichkeit – which, like the Swedish hygge, means far more than the loose English translation of cosiness. They are a pleasure to discover.

Left Buckwheat, cherry and pea-shoot salad. Above Anja Dunk, picking elderflowers