In Germany, traditional cuisines tend to be better defined as country cooking rather than as the Grand Cuisine to the west.  While Germany shares France's regional variation in the styles and ingredients, these differences are not nearly as dramatic.  Though traditional dishes like dumplings, wurst (sausages), pastries, and beer may make Germany seem the worst possible place to eat healthily, in reality more and more restaurants are offering foreign foods and neue Küche (cuisine moderne).

Young people are increasingly health conscious and wary of more old-fashioned, richer fare. Chefs trained in Switzerland, France, or Italy return to Germany to open Continental restaurants, and Italians and Turks, many of whom originally came to Germany as "guest workers," have stayed to open up restaurants featuring their own culinary traditions.

Famed for its hams, this region of Germany eats food guaranteed to put hair on your chest. To go totally native, sample their Sulperknochen, made from the pigs' trotters (feet), ears, and tail, and served traditionally with peas pudding and pickled cabbage. Or try Tüttchen, a ragout of herb-flavored calves' head and calves' brains. Not into any of the above? Settle for Pickert, sweet potato cakes flavored with raisins.

As you move into the Mittelrhein and Mosel regions, the Rhine and Mosel become a major influence on the local cuisine, as fresh fish are the staple of many dishes.  Many of the region's sauces and soups are based on the local Riesling and Spätburgunder wines.  Specific dishes that are frequently found on menus sporting local cuisines are Tafelspitz (boiled beef) and Rheinischer Sauerbraten (marinated pot roast with a sweet-and-sour gravy sauce).  Dishes that are heavily influenced by Kartoffel (potato) include Rösti (potato pancakes), and Döppekoche, a casserole prepared in a cast-ironed pot with an apple compote.

The food of the Rhineland features the kinds of dishes that have made Germans the subject of good-natured ridicule, especially in neighboring France. For example, there's Saumagen, stuffed pork belly with pickled cabbage. Also beloved is Schweinepfeffer, a highly seasoned and spicy pork ragout that's thickened with pig blood. After that feast, it's on to Hämchen, pork trotters with pickled cabbage and potatoes, or else Sauerbraten, beef marinated in wine vinegar and spices. Postwar Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was a Rhinelander, and one of his favorite foods was Reibekukchen, small potato pancakes with a blueberry or applesauce. Taverns along the Rhine fill up when Federweisser, partially fermented new wine, comes in. They drink it while devouring onion tarts.

In the Rheingau, the cuisine revolves around the farming tradition found in the area, with a major focus on pork-based dishes.  Prominent dishes include pork ribs and chops, stewed beef, blood sausage, potato soup, and pancakes with bacon.  Grüne Sosse is a thin cream sauce of herbs that is typically served with potatoes and hard-boiled eggs.  An acquired taste like of Philadelphia or haggis of Scotland is Handkäs mit Musik (literally handcheese with music).  This mix of slices of cheese covered with onions, oil, and vinegar is served with bread and butter.

To the north, in the Rheinhessen, the principal cuisine is based in hearty casseroles.  The Dippe-Has is a combination of rabbit and port baked in red wine while the Backes Grumbeere is scalloped potatoes that have been prepared with bacon, sour cream, white wine, and a layer of port.

Like many Germanic culinary regions, the Pfalz has a traditional platter that is an excellent introduction to the regions cuisine, the Pfälzer Teller.  This platter traditionally consists of bratwurst (sausage), leberknödel (liver dumplings), saumagen (a type of sausage with a meat and potato mixture inserted with spices), weinkraut (sauerkraut in aged in wine) and katoffelpüree (mashed potatoes). 

The German love affair with wurst (sausage) dates from the dawn of history. Every region of Germany has its own specialty, but the overall favorite seems to be bratwurst from Nürnberg, made of seasoned and spiced pork. Germans often take their wurst with a bun and a dab of mustard. White sausage (Weisswurst) is a medley of veal, calves' brains, and spleen.

Bauernwurst (farmer's sausage) and Knockwurst are variations of the frankfurter, which originated (naturally) in Frankfurt. (Oddly enough, small frankfurters, which are called wieners or Vienna sausages in the United States, and Wienerwurst in Germany, are known as frankfurters in Austria.) Leberwurst (made from liver) is a specialty of Hesse. Rinderwurst and Blutwurst (beef sausage and blood sausage) are Westphalian specialties and are often eaten with Steinhager (corn brandy).

Another regional favorites is Spargel, or white asparagus, which is harvested in late Spring and is best grown in the Rheinhessen area around Ingleheim (best paired with a dry weissburgunder).  White mushrooms are available in the Summer and Autumn and are often served in a cream sauce with dumplings and paired with a dry Riesling.

Among the fish that are pulled from the recently cleaned up Rhine are pike (hecht), eel (aal), and perch (zander).  All of these are best paired with a dry Riesling.  The exception is when the fish is smoked, when it will go better with a Kabinett that is a bit on the sweeter side.

When planning for a picnic, you'll definitely want to pick up the German bread (brotchen); cheese (käse), sausages (wurst), and hams (schinken) are absolute musts!

For variety and quality, German beer is unequaled. The world's oldest brewery is in Bavaria, but other regions in Germany have proud beer-making traditions. Export beers and the rather more bitter Pils, the most popular type of beer, are also produced in Berlin, Hamburg, the Ruhr, Hesse, and Stuttgart. Altbier, a very early product of the brewer's art, can be found today all over Germany.

In Germany, if you go into a beer hall and ask the bartender for ein Bier, you'll probably get the standard stock beer, Vollbier, which is 4% alcohol. More potent is Export at 5%, or Bockbier at 6%. Connoisseurs specify the type of beer they want and often the brewery. The following is a bit of beer vocabulary. When the malt has been darkly roasted and fermented for much longer, it becomes dunkles Bier, or dark beer. Doppelbock is an extra dark beer with a 6% alcoholic content. Helles Bier is light, and brewed from malt dried and baked by the local brewery, or Brauerei. Many Germans, especially the citizens of Bamberg, like their beer "smoked." If that appeals to you, request Rauchbier. In nearby Bayreuth, Richard Wagner's old hometown, locals prefer a "steam beer" known as Dampfbier. The denizens of Düsseldorf and Frankfurt can often be heard requesting Alt, a brown, barley-malt brew. Kölsch is a light beer drunk mainly in Cologne in tall fluted glasses. Hefeweizen is a yeasty wheat beer consumed often with a squeeze of lemon. Berliner Weisse is made from wheat, like a Bavarian white beer, but with a dash of raspberry or woodruff syrup. Dark and sweet, malt beer has hardly any alcohol, whereas Starkbierzet is a powerful beer served when the barrels are opened after the post-Lenten celebrations in March. It has the highest alcohol content of them all. Finally, Pils, or Pilsener, beers are light and contain more hops. Dortmund has earned a reputation in this field.

Over the centuries, monks brewed a strong beer for consumption during the fasting period of Lent, during which they were technically supposed to drink only water. The story goes that the pope heard about this custom and ordered that the beer be transported to Rome for him to sample. When the pope finally tasted the beer (which didn't have preservatives back then) after its long journey, he couldn't imagine why anyone would want to drink it and decreed that the beer was strong enough punishment for the Bavarian monks to drink it during Lent. Today, all Munich breweries brew this strong beer during Lent. The beer always ends with an "ator" in its name; Salvator and Triumphator are the best-known brands. "Ator" in German means a strong beer. By long-standing tradition, the names of German Doppelbock beers (strong beers) end with an "ator" suffix.

Although beer festivals are common around the world, none rivals Munich's renowned Oktoberfest. This massive celebration lasts 16 days and lures some seven million visitors every year who soak up about 5.7 million liters (1 1/2 million gal.) of beer.