Silvester Foods

[breakingthrunow]

Germany celebrates Silvester with fireworks, champagne, special foods, and boisterous social gatherings. Making noise is key: the ruckus of fireworks, firecrackers, drums, whip-cracking and banging kitchen utensils has been driving away evil winter spirits since the days of the Teutons. One of the most famous firework displays can be found at the

Comments

[so_vieh]

That's quite an accurate article here. :D

And gosh, so true with the war statement. I remember 1995 being particularly bad; the similarities are not lost on us! Not everyone is so hot for "Knaller" though. I, for example, am satisfied with Wunderkerzen. :D

We had cheese fondue yesterday...so yummy. Today there'll be a buffet with things like Kartoffelsalat, Buletten, ...I need to ask about Linsensuppe, since it's a tradition, but I haven't seen any in the kitchen yet. Hmm. Oh, and in Berlin Berliners are actually called "Pfannkuchen", because we don't like to eat ourselves. :P

[czarny]

I want all that food!!!

I hope to be in Germany next year if I get the job so hopefully I can experience Silvester there unless I come back to England for the holidays lol. :3

[smarriveurr]

Other than in countries like the USA, public drinking is not prohibited which makes for a fun setup between party mood, corks popping off champagne bottles and fireworks on German streets at midnight.

Oh, man, yes, that made things interesting. I was in Marburg 2000-2001, and I remember the odd sensation when I went out on the streets and found out that the space up by the Schloss (and therefore my apartment) was jam packed with drunks firing off explosives!

Also, I was just talking to folks working for the local paper, in a Pennsylvania Dutch area, and they were talking about a story on "this tradition here - I'm told it's German, but you'd know better than I": pork and sauerkraut dinners on New Year's Eve.

For me, now, I'm back in the U.S., and I'll be celebrating quietly, indoors, with a few friends, watching a ball of colored lights be lowered to the roof of a building in the middle of a city about a hundred miles (160km) away. Because that's so much more sane and normal... ;)

[phqbethel108]

As an American put it: "If you were in Germany and had forgotten that it was New Year’s Eve, you might think a war had broken out"

I so agree with that quote. Last year, it seemed everyone in our small village was lighting fireworks in the street and we were a little worried about it catching something on fire, since the streets are really narrow. There was so much sulfer the sky started to look yellow and smell like rotten eggs.