In the interest of not letting the awesomeness that was the Mercatino Tedeesco slip through my lazily blogging fingers, please allow me to direct your attention to last November.
The Mercatino Tedesco di Heidelberg, which translates literally from the Italian as "small German market from Heidelberg," (Creative, no?) took over the Piazza di Santa Croce for nearly a month last November and December. It was a great place to do some Hanukkah and Christmas shopping, with terrific crafts from Germany and elsewhere. (Austria, mostly.)
Adorable hats and puppets for children jostle with jewelry, scarves, porcelain, statuettes, camping gear (!), soaps, and most of all a huge array of German and Austrian food stands. (That last may not sound like a good thing, but damn is it hard to find anything besides Tuscan food or falafel around these parts.)
We went to the market nearly every day it was open, for a mug of gluhwein (glow-wine, or mulled wine - also called vin brulee), or a sausage, or for a bit of holiday shopping.
It was a beautiful place to just browse and feel in the holiday spirit, though the two weeks before Christmas things were more than a little crowded and hectic.
The wares on sale at this booth might look familiar to cousin-megs. (I really should have gotten a little something from this booth. STUPID. Yes, those are my meaty paws flapping around the lovely little necklaces. Great angle on them.)
We did end up making a lot of food-related purchases. For one thing, there was a terrific spice and dried herb guy who boasted things we haven't seen in months - like dill, and dill seed (which tastes just like caraway, something we've had no luck finding around here), and tarragon. For another, we were able to buy a bunch of German sausages (most of which are even now frozen in our tiny freezer) for next to nothing near the end of the festival. We did stay away from those dang Salzburger Mozart chocolates that practically chase you down the street all over Austria bellowing "BUY ME. LOVE ME."
Nor did we buy a giant rope of garlic, appealing as this display was.
Perhaps the most wonderfullest thing at the Mercatino is the fact that there is a functioning carousel there. Not just any carousel - this one is missing the fanciful horses and chariots normally festooning such edifices. It's a BAR! That serves lots of beer and mulled wine! And rotates!
You're probably thinking that a rotating carousel six steps off the ground full of drunk people during the rainy season might be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Probably it is. One night, on arriving at the carousel for a post-dinner evening mug of gluhwein with friends, we noticed a woman sitting up against the candied and chocolate-covered fruit stand that backed up to the carousel. She was surrounded by friends and was holding her ankle. We settled in, and by the time the carousel made its 20-minute rotation back around to her, an ambulance was there and her ankle was being splinted.
A half-hour later or so, the bartenders were sticking these hand-made signs to the top of the staircases. "Attend to the Stairs," indeed.
The carousel itself didn't serve any food - just drinks. Rotating drinks.
And, well, you can't beat the view. Even with our neck-chins in it.
During the day, you can even buy food from the surrounding food stands and eat it in the carousel. We did this several times - it was great especially when it was raining.
(These sausages were from the stand run by guys from Trentino-Alto Adige, the part of Italy that butts up against Austria. Good bread, boring kraut.)
As you can see, you have to buy a drink or somesuch if you're going to eat your ill-gained foods in the carousel.
Husbear to the rescue!
And if you don't want to buy the more expensive mulled wine from the carousel, you can get it from this guy and his giant kettle. Though his mugs come sans carousel.
There are a fair number of savory food options at the Mercatino, as long as you want German food. There are white sausages, and red sausages, and spiedini (kebobs) of pork, and stinco di maiale, which I've been told is like the pig's ankle that's deliciously roasted, and a couple of different hearty stews. And lots of sauerkraut. Pretzels, too. You know, typically light stuff. Doesn't stick with you for hours, but it works.
Sausages waiting for their buns, for your perusal:
And here's a whole piglet, roasted. (Maialino di Latte - milk-fed piglet.)
We only ended up having a couple of pretzels, something about which I'm not overly pleased.
Here's a mouth-view of another sausage, just prior to being eaten. And a view of the carousel during the day! Most booths started out letting you apply your own mustard, but so many people kept squirting mustard on themselves that that task was returned to the sausage artists.
And if you're curious what's up with that stinco di maiale, here's a half order. I thought it looked like a lot of food, but there were all sorts of people around us with full orders - double the meat! The booth I mentioned earlier, from Trentino-Alto Adige, is the best place to get stinco. Just wish they had better kraut. Delicious pretzel-bit, though!
That is a seriously good bit of pork, y'all. Crunchy skin, moist piggy meat. Here's a food porn shot for you:
And, if you really need something a little sweet to chase all that rich and pickly, there are certainly options for you! There are homemade cookie and candy and fruit stands, along with a place selling different types of sweet pretzels. You can get apfelstrudel (that would be... apple strudel) at a couple of places, with vanilla cream sauce if you want. This one was ok. Rich, buttery, and appley, which is I suppose what one wants from a strudel?
Another fun option, which I imagine would be even more entertaining if you have children with you, is the cotton candy (zuckerwatte, zucchero filato) guy.
No colors or flavors added here, just an enormous cloud of sticky filaments. This put me straight back in Roos gymshoes with a penny in the side pocket, an enormous t-shirt scrunched at one side, and pleated drop-waist jeans. Oh yeah, and a slap bracelet decorated with fireworks. With one ponytail on the side of my head.
Guess the year of Girlie's birth and win a picture of her with novelty-size cotton candy!
So - if you find yourself in this area in the month or so leading up to Christmas, definitely drop by Piazza Santa Croce and see if the Mercatino Tedesco is in full swing. A good time is guaranteed, as long as you watch it on those stairs.
