German Cuisine

German cuisine centers on bread, pork, potatoes and a wide variety of sausages, known collectively as Wurst, alongside pickled vegetables such as sauerkraut. Bread culture is unusually deep and regionally varied, with hundreds of recognized bread types baked from wheat and rye. Beer brewing, governed since the sixteenth century by purity traditions in several German states, is closely tied to regional cuisine and communal drinking culture. German cooking historically relied on preservation techniques, salting, smoking, pickling and fermenting, suited to a temperate climate with a short growing season, and these techniques remain central even as fresh produce has become widely available. Regional cuisines vary considerably, from the hearty meat and potato dishes of Bavaria to the lighter, fish-forward cooking of the northern coast.