When I was growing up in the Black Forest, delicious, thoughtfully prepared food was always at hand. My mother’s cooking, though most often fairly simple, was fresh, flavorful, and satisfying. Cafés offered specialty pastries and artfully presented savory bites well worth a day’s hike. Gasthaus restaurants prided themselves on basic hearty fare and daily specials we often waited all week to savor. And then there were the hotels. They were in a different league altogether. Hotels were, and still very much are, paragons of elegant dining, where serious culinary connoisseurs and the social elite celebrate classic menus and refined hospitality.

My experience cooking in hotels started early. In my day, many families still adhered to old-world traditions and encouraged their children to choose an occupation early in life. I had always loved cooking, so after I finished eighth grade I began my journey towards becoming a chef. I was just fourteen years old. Excited and anxious to learn from classically trained chefs, my parents sent me to apprentice and attend the culinary academy at the Hotel Post in Nagold. Like other elite hotels of its kind, the Hotel Post was famous for its pedigreed chefs, French inspired menus, and celebrated clientele, which included a host of prime ministers and Napoleon Bonaparte himself.

Naturally, many aspiring chefs desired to apprentice at the Hotel Post, but limited openings prevented many from doing so. I, in fact, was fortunate to be admitted. The year I arrived, there was no room left for me on the upper levels of the hotel where all the staff lodged. I made the best of it, though, and found a room across the street above a gas station. Actually, living outside the hotel worked to my advantage. Local folks soon learned of my butchering abilities and I began moonlighting on the side, often butchering deer at a moment’s notice and sometimes late at night. Occasionally, I made even more money selling some of the meat and prized skin I was able to keep. I welcomed any extra money in my pocket, considering we only earned $20 a month as apprentices. In truth, though, we needed very little spending money. We had few days off and spent the majority of our time in the kitchen.

Life at the Hotel Post was all consuming for the three years I apprenticed there. A large, experienced staff ran it with precision and according to the highest standards. In the dining room, the maitre d’, professional waiters, and bar men (who had committed all conceivable drinks to memory) maintained order and elegance. The tables were always draped with crisp white linens and bedecked with shining silver flatware, sparkling crystal, and fine china. The kitchen was equally disciplined and orderly. The executive chef was in charge of a huge brigade of chefs and apprentices who were not only responsible for cooking, but also for the many kinds of food preparation that the classic menu required.

Like many upscale establishments of its kind, the Hotel Post was completely self-sufficient and demanded many hours from the kitchen staff. There was so much work to be done that, typical of classically run kitchens, we all worked double shifts six days a week. Similar to centuries-old taverns in Europe and America, we butchered our own meat, made our own sausages, and tended to our own smoke house. We spent countless hours preparing pastry and delicate desserts in a separate pastry kitchen. We cared for our own orchards that produced an abundance of fruit, including apples, plums, and berries. Occasionally, we were even required to give up a cherished day off from work to harvest the produce. We also kept large root cellars filled with staples like potatoes, horseradish, and celery roots that grew in our extensive gardens. I recall we did have several women who cared for the gardens, but we pickled and preserved fruits and vegetables ourselves and even made our own eau de vie.

When my apprenticeship ended at the Hotel Post, I graduated from the culinary academy and received my Gehilfenbrief (chef’s certificate). I was finally a professional chef and could work anywhere in Europe. Before settling in one location, though, I decided to travel and gain more experience working as a commis (an assistant chef of sorts) in a variety of hotels and restaurants. I first went on to assist with the reopening of the Sommerberg Hotel in Bad Wildbad—another gorgeous hotel that literally sat on the top of a mountain and catered to an upscale clientele. From there, I went on to work in Switzerland, France, and Italy, eventually completing seven years of intensive training.

In my day, especially, hotels reflected the most admired fashion of cooking and dining—that of France. It is undeniable that French cuisine greatly influenced the dishes we prepared in Nagold and Bad Wildbad. To be a great chef anywhere in Europe, one had to intimately know and be able to prepare classic French recipes. We studied the techniques and dishes of the famous nineteenth-century French chef and “master of modern cookery,” Auguste Escoffier, and we gained command of the extensive terminology set forth in culinary reference books like Le Répertoire de La Cuisine, first published in 1914.

It is thus hardly surprising that many of the recipes I present in this chapter speak with a pronounced French accent. Dishes like steak tartare, coquilles St. Jacques, venison ragoût à la forestière, boeuf bourguignonne, and crème brûlée appeared regularly on our hotel menus and have become some of my favorites. As much as we admired French cooking, however, we were still loyal to the traditions and ingredients native to our own Black Forest and incorporated them whenever we could. As a result, we prepared items like herring bonne femme, utilizing our beloved pickled herring; paupiettes of brook trout, featuring our most famous fish; pork medallions with lager and chanterelles, prepared with our much loved golden lager; and Zwetschgenkuchen (plum tart), in which the region’s favorite plums are showcased in classic French pastry.

My years as a young chef in hotels were filled with much hard work but many rewards, as well. Like many new chefs, when I returned home from my travels, I worked at the family restaurant as chef de cuisine. There, at the Gasthaus zum Buckenberg in Pforzheim, I utilized many of my new skills and served fancy dishes every so often like chocolate soufflé or frog’s legs Provençal. It was always obvious when a young chef returned to the family Gasthaus after years of classic training, because elegant items would periodically appear on the otherwise modest menus.

For the most part, though, refined classic dishes remained within the heralded domains of hotel chefs’ exclusive repertoires. These menu items were complicated and often required costly ingredients as well as the labor of numerous cooks and apprentices. Patrons expected exquisite food and service and happily paid for the experience.
Elegant hotel dishes are about as far removed from comforting home food as they can be. Each accurately represents the culinary traditions of the Black Forest, however, and shows the depth and breadth of our respect and passion for the table.