27/46.- Alsace, Choucroute

Has all the visiting made you hungry ? The thing to eat in Alsace is Choucroute, the French word for Sauerkraut. Hardly a diet dish, but delicious. The centre of the dish is white cabbage macerated in wine, plus some other ingredients (juniper berries, mace, cumin, or, more simply, carrots ... each restaurant has its specialty) and potatoes, cut or mashed, all this accompanied by plenty of salted pork meat in various forms (ham, sausages, ...). The drink to go with it is either Alsatian beer or a dry Alsatian wine. The typical Alsatian desert is Kugelhopf, a circular cake with a hole in the middle. For non-diet-conscious people, the hole can be filled with ice cream of whip cream; or the cake can be made of ice cream with Gewurztraminer, a spicy Alsatian brandy.

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