Grandma came especially and now we cook together. It should be a festive meal: roast duck with red cabbage. The goose fat slides into the pan and melts silently. The apple and onion cubes are sizzled in hot fat with a little sugar until they become translucent and the sugar caramelizes. Then the herb falls out of the open jar. Followed by cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon and juniper. A pinch of vinegar to keep the herb’s deep purple color and a bigger splash of dry red wine to keep it tasty. And the narrow kitchen-living room smells of Christmas. With an expert grip, gloved hands lift the pan and roast duck from the roasting tube, cut it and arrange it alongside the cabbage and dumplings.After the party, some guests are lethargic. A coffee for digestion is served, brewed in a filter and served with condensed milk.
Schmalz and Generation Z? nobody!
Even today, though, retreaders (born before 1952) represent a huge share of turnover in the product categories lard, canned cabbage, coffee filters and condensed milk: 40% for lard. Among baby boomers (born between 1955 and 1969) the percentage is still 36%. The Next Generation Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) represent only 5%. And the very young generation of the so-called iBrains (born from 1997 to 2011, also known as Gen Z) is not notably notable, with only 0.5% of the shares.
Something similar can be observed with canned sauerkraut: 30% restorative. For canned red cabbage it is 22%. Coffee filters and condensed milk: 33 and 30%. There is no evidence of an increase in the popularity of these products among younger generations. Or as the study author put it: “There is nothing to suggest that Millennials and iBrains will return to sauerkraut as they mature.”
Will the products disappear soon?
If you wanted to be pathetic, you coudl write: German cuisine is in danger of losing key ingredients, a sort of culinary mass extinction. But will these products disappear from supermarket shelves altogether? Why do subsequent generations eat so little cabbage and canned lard, and why do they so rarely buy coffee filters and creamer? And what do these developments mean for the culinary heritage of the Rebuilders?
Call someone who should know. Robert Kecskes, Senior Insights Director at Yougov and author of the study: “This is due on the one hand to social changes and on the other to the ecological component,” says the researcher. A look back: In the time of the Reconstructionists, people cooked with the food seasonally available in the region.Meat was rarely available,leftovers were transformed into broths and anyone who wanted to eat summer fruit or vegetables even in winter had to preserve them. You cooked with what was there. And the animal fat and cabbage were right there. “It was scarcity cuisine,” Kecskes says. And as culinary inspiration always comes from contact with foreign eating habits and foods, for a long time nothing changed.
during travels, the Germans learned other pleasures
But the growing prosperity that began after the end of World War II brought unprecedented mobility among Germans. Travel has become accessible for the average person. “Baby boomers who grew up in the era of postmaterialism have already known other countries: Italy, France or Spain – this is how foods like pasta and paella arrived in Germany. And the younger ones were able to learn about the world, that is, Asian or South American cuisine”, explains Kecskes, author of the study. And these new “culinary worlds”, as he calls them, were brought to Germany by the younger generations. “For this reason alone, German home cooking competes with cosmopolitan cuisine.”
Lard is used almost only by baby boomers and also by older generations for frying.Image Alliance
Life in the Federal Republic is also different today than in the reconstruction period. The German economy has undergone a conversion over the last 75 years. According to data from the Federal Statistical Office, at the end of the 1960s more than half of the country’s overall gross value added came from the manufacturing industry. At the turn of the millennium this percentage dropped to around 30% and has remained at this level as. The share of agriculture and forestry has also become less significant. At the beginning of the 1950s, around 10% of added value was generated in this sector, but in 2022 this share has fallen to just over 1%. Simultaneously occurring, the service sector has gained enormous importance. This share, equal to almost 70%, today clearly exceeds that of other sectors. And as the way people earn money has changed, so has their diet.
“In the past you had to do hard physical work and to do that you needed the right diet.Today more and more people have to work very hard cognitively, but they sit all day and don’t move,” says Kecskes. This also changes nutritional requirements. “It’s no longer about building muscle and, above all, being full, because that might be important for mechanical work, but not in a service company.”
Ecology also plays a role
Consumers’ ecological awareness also has an impact. “Today we live in a society where plant-based eating is becoming increasingly important. There is little room for lard there.” And Kecskes is convinced that the topic of lasting nutrition will no longer disappear, but will become increasingly relevant. Younger generations are increasingly turning to vegan and vegetarian meat substitutes.They drink coffee from small coffee pots, mostly Italian, which can be heated on the stove and lightened with oat milk. Even the very young iBrains don’t give up their caffeine boost.They simply consume it in a different form, namely in energy drinks. And even if the younger generations eat less canned cabbage, they do not lose vitamins. However, during the lunch break you don’t often find pork shank with red cabbage, but rather soy cutlets with quinoa salad.
Loss of culture in German cuisine?
The decline in popularity of foods like lard and canned cabbage isn’t just a nutritional issue. Lard was added to conventional German recipes such as Bavarian sauerkraut, broad beans with bacon or Sunday roast to intensify the flavor. By the time of World War II, cabbage dishes were so ubiquitous in the Federal Republic that Americans called Germans “Krauts.” “These are things that really only exist in history. We children only rarely cooked and the grandchildren cooked even less often,” explains Kecskes. Is German cuisine therefore at risk of a loss of culture?
No, it’s more about a cultural shift triggered by globalization and climate change, Kecskes says. “We see a transition from a relatively homogeneous definition of food culture to differentiated and diverse food cultures.” And this transition is also accompanied by goodbyes. This is where we need to start: “You have to be able to transform these experiences of loss into experiences of pleasure,” he says. But how does it work? The researcher believes that to preserve the culinary heritage of the Reconstructionists, the food culture of this time must adapt to changed conditions. The classic sauerkraut, for example, as a side dish to meat is unlikely to survive, but could reinvent itself as German kimchi with the appropriate presentation.
Or sauerkraut rebirth?
Kimchi is a Korean dish that usually consists of fermented bok choy or radish. Similar to german sauerkraut, kimchi relies on lactic acid fermentation to preserve the cabbage and give it a new flavor. According to the expert,in the form of kimchi,sauerkraut could free itself from the traditional niche and,in a so-called cosmopolitan form,attract younger generations again.
sometimes foods that have been declared dead experiance a rebirth. In this context, just think of the request of the future American Health Minister Robert Kennedy, who recently fought during the electoral campaign to convince, among other things, McDonald’s to return to frying its fries in beef tallow instead of oil. of rapeseed. kecskes says: “When change occurs in full force, you also realize what you have lost.” Maybe sauerkraut will return one day.
You don’t have to worry that you won’t be able to find goose fat for cabbage or canned red cabbage at the supermarket anytime soon, at least according to the study’s author. Both will continue to be available, as will the filters and coffee creamer. Because these products will continue to be in demand,just less frequently than in the time of the reconstructionists. In the future we will no longer be able to choose between five different types of canned red cabbage. Alternatives such as fresh cabbage and frozen vegetables, which the study did not examine, remain unaffected.
in the future, German families will certainly still smell of cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves and juniper at Christmas. Maybe it also tastes like sweet and spicy sauerkraut kimchi in some people.