Saxon cuisine is a fairly complex subject, because the fact is that the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) has different culinary traditions than the Vogtland or Leipzig. But one thing Saxon cuisine is everywhere: hearty. People like a good helping of meat on their plate, whether as Dresdner Wiegebraten (Dresden meatloaf), Sauerbraten (marinated pot roast), Radeberger Biergulasch (beer goulash) or bratwurst. At this point, a warning must be issued about one meat dish, or rather meat-like dish: Sächsische Flecke. It is a kind of sweet-and-sour stew of potatoes, pickles and cow’s udder. When the Schulspeisung, the school lunch, had this on the program, lunch was canceled. It was similar with Gräupchen (pearl barley soup). Admittedly, though, these are very subjective judgments. Both dishes still have their fans today.
No real shortage
To this day, West Germans picture the GDR citizen as someone going hungry. But there was no shortage of food, even if it was perhaps a bit one-sided at times. In winter, the produce section of the Kaufhalle, the state-run supermarket, was dominated by white and red cabbage, and as a substitute for tropical fruit the Party treated the people to the Kubaorange, the Cuban orange, which had relatively little to do with the orange we know. The quite numerous private bakers and butchers in the GDR, who often practiced their craft superbly, were in great demand. But above all at the butcher’s there was the so-called Bückware (literally “stooping goods,” kept under the counter), meaning that special meat such as beef tenderloin was discreetly wrapped and handed over only to the best customers.
From the big brother
As everywhere in the GDR, in Saxony too there were efforts to establish Soviet culture as the guiding culture. This also showed in the kitchen. Every child in Dresden and Leipzig knew Soljanka, a sour soup. GDR Soljanka, however, had little in common with the original Russian one. Here it was made with leftover sausage and Letscho (Hungarian pepper and tomato stew), which could actually taste quite good. Especially popular with children were the Russian candies and Moskauer Eis (Moscow ice cream). The Soviet Union somehow remained foreign, but everything sweet from there was good. So now and then you carried your pocket money to the Magazin, a shop for Russian army personnel. Here the big candies sat in jars, and the Russian saleswomen wore colorful mohair hats and heavy makeup and used an abacus.
Saxony home-style
There were certainly also good, traditional restaurants with home-style cooking to match. Known far beyond the borders of Saxony was a restaurant near the Sternmühlental valley outside Chemnitz. It could happen that you had to wait in line on Sundays. Here they served the most wonderful Rouladen (rolled beef) and game dishes with homemade potato dumplings, or “Forelle Müllerin” (trout meunière). There was a curiosity in Karl-Marx-Stadt, as Chemnitz was called in the GDR: the horse butcher Franklin Hoffmann. It offered a particularly cheap lunch consisting of a horse-meat patty, potatoes and mushy vegetables. In the pubs, the choice of food was limited. The standards included “Warmes Eckchen” (Bratenbrot, roast meat on bread) and “Strammer Max” (Hackepeter, seasoned raw ground pork, with a fried egg and gherkins).
Have an extra egg
In Saxony, too, there was almost everywhere an HO or Konsum restaurant, run by the state retail chain or the consumer cooperative, called “Zum Goldbroiler.” These were comparable to the “Wienerwald” chicken restaurant chain in West Germany. The GDR had discovered large-scale chicken farming for itself. With Broiler, the GDR word for roast chicken (from the English “broil”), in every variation, the people could be kept well fed. The winter of 1984 was particularly harsh. Many male workers were assigned to the heating power plants, and the hens froze to death by the thousands in the battery cages. A real supply gap opened up. For a long time there were no more chickens, eggs or egg noodles. The slogan “Have an extra egg” was quickly removed from all Saxon Kaufhallen.