Potatoes, Selma and Sieglinde - the apples that grow in the soil

These ladies are wonderful companions on your trip through Culinary Germany. Irmgard and Maritta are highly recommended for dumplings, all sorts of mashes and soups. Linda, Selma and Sieglinde are ideal for salads. Christa, Gloria and Saskia can be used for any kind of dish. The ladies with the melodious names are potatoes- great tubers!

King Frederick the Great of Prussia brought the potato from the Andes to Germany and made it popular as probably nowhere else in the world. So popular that since the 18th century the potato can be found on every menu. The colourful culinary potato field ranges from Flensburg in the most northern part of Germany to Füssen near the border with Austria.

In Schleswig-Holstein they love pears, beans and bacon. But it is unthinkable to serve this dish without boiled potatoes. The same goes for the Pichelsteiner stew with three types of meat, a speciality from the Bavarian Forest. Generations of cooks have improved the potato soup. In Berlin it is served with bacon and spicy sausages, in the Palatinate with celery and cream.

A special dish is a potato cake with bacon - a recipe from the Sauerland. Or the ubiquitous potato salad garnished with a pair of Frankfurters. In the Rhineland it is eaten cold with mayonnaise, in Baden-Württemberg lukewarm with vinaigrette and onions.

But the real destiny for this miracle tuber is to be served as an essential side dish. It comes with varying spices as potato fritters and sautéd potatoes, boiled and fried as a gratin and in stews, and it can be served in foil. But possibly the most enjoyable way to eat potatoes is to boil them in their skin, peel them and add just pepper, salt and curd cheese. Potatoes with sour cream and shrimps - a delight.

In many parts of Germany festivals are held in honour of the potato. For instance in the Jerichower Land. All over the Odenwald region cooks use their imagination and skill during the week of the potato. Also on the German coast, in Stade, Altes Land, special potato days are celebrated.

There is no end to the praise of the potato. This is the reason why the people from Cologne have invented a combination of potatoes, apples and fried black pudding - a heavenly dish. It is called "Himmel und Äd" - Heaven and Earth!