Ever since I became chef/proprietor of Philadelphia’s historic City Tavern restaurant, I have waited for the opportunity to pay tribute to my native Black Forest in Germany. Although I have authored two cookbooks on colonial American cuisine, City Tavern Cookbook and City Tavern Baking and Dessert Cookbook, my desire to write about this fabled region has persisted. In the book before you, my dream of memorializing the way of life and food I experienced as a child and as a young culinary apprentice has finally come true. The pages that follow represent years of joyful food memories, and I happily share them with you.

The food and culture of the Black Forest remain mysterious, even to those who are familiar with German traditions. This southwest region—bordered by Switzerland to the south and France to the west—is indeed part of Germany, but its unique terrain and historically diverse population give it a personality all its own. The region’s cuisine of course reflects this. To speak of German food as a single category not only denies its regional differences, but is also simply incorrect. Over the centuries, the Black Forest has developed its own culinary traditions and characteristics, and I have tried my best to represent many of them in the recipes I have chosen for this book.

Understanding how the Black Forest came to be so different from the rest of Germany requires a brief history recap. When Catholic King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the protestant Huguenots found themselves the subjects of a religious witch-hunt and fled France. Huguenots escaping Burgundy settled just across the French border in protestant-friendly Alsace-Lorraine, Switzerland, and the Black Forest region of Germany. These immigrants carried with them well-established French traditions of hospitality and gastronomy, little known in Germany at the time. The region quickly became infused with them, and this food- and family-centered joie de vivre transformed into a Freude zu leben that has contributed to the area’s uniqueness ever since.

My maternal grandfather descended from the early Huguenots who immigrated to the Black Forest. He was a true bon vivant and epicure. His entire family, in fact, had a reputation for great culinary prowess and convivial hospitality. Growing up in this family of chefs and restaurateurs, I knew early on that my life would somehow revolve around food. Out of a long line of relatives, brothers, sisters, cousins, and nephews, my family always believed I was the one who would commit to a culinary career. They were right.

Even as a child, I displayed a passion for food and cooking. At the age of four, I started spending most of my free time in the kitchen at my aunt and uncle’s establishment, Gasthaus zum Buckenberg. My uncle worked mostly in the butcher shop, while my aunt spent most of her time cooking and organizing daily menus. I loved working with both of them.

My parents recognized my enthusiasm for the culinary arts. Thanks to their vision and persistence, I had the opportunity to apprentice in a superior establishment, the Hotel Post in Nagold, which was established in 1773. This elegant hotel was renowned for its cuisine and many high-profile patrons, including Napoleon Bonaparte. By the time I began my three-year apprenticeship there, I had already acquired ten years of cooking experience at the Gasthaus zum Buckenberg. I was familiar with the routines of a professional kitchen and was armed with much more culinary knowledge and savvy than most of my classmates. My uncle had even taught me how to butcher meat and make sausages—advanced skills for a 14-year-old apprentice. Needless to say, within weeks of arriving at the Hotel Post, I had set myself apart from the other culinary students. Many of the recipes I learned to prepare in these early years have become some of my most cherished, and I have included them here.

By the time I finished my apprenticeship at the Hotel Post, I had achieved the status of a young professional chef. The military-like system in which I trained had taught me much, but I knew I still needed more experience in order to advance in the culinary field. I decided, therefore, to travel to Switzerland and work at the Sommerberg Hotel. It was there that I became skilled in preparing the elegant cuisine for which the Black Forest is so well known.
As I moved on, working in other restaurants in Switzerland, Italy, and France, I realized that my culinary training in the Black Forest had prepared me well to become a competitive and well-respected young chef. One of my greatest experiences took place in Gstaad, Switzerland. There, the Aga Khan’s restaurant, The Chessery, recruited me for the chef de grille position. (This chef, always outgoing and multi-lingual, is stationed in the dining room to prepare dishes in view of the guests, often tableside on a guéridon.) The work was challenging and helped me to hone my skills. I admit it was also exciting to work at such a swanky establishment—one recognized by many at the time as the playground of the rich and famous.

While in Switzerland, I took advantage of many other culinary opportunities as well. I worked for the Vatican at the Casa Berno in Ascona; I was chef de cuisine at Beau Rivage in Neufchâtel; and I worked at the Hotel Belvedere in Interlacken, from which I was recruited to cook in the United States. I agreed to work for only one year in America, fully intending to return to my hometown of Pforzheim and take the reins of the family restaurant, Gasthaus zum Buckenberg. Ultimately, however, my culinary journey was to take me in a different direction.

Once in the United States, I worked at Chicago’s luxurious Mid America Club and then as executive chef at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. A few years later, I moved to Brazil to consult on the development of several five-star resorts there. In the late 1970s and 1980s, I worked for a number of prominent hotel corporations and traveled to restaurants throughout the world. These many experiences led me to start my own company, Concepts by Staib, Ltd., in 1989, and my travels continued to such places as Russia, Thailand, and the Caribbean. These were exciting years, filled with new challenges and inspiring events. Still, memories of the Black Forest continued to inspire me everyday, and I gratefully relied on the skills and repertoire I had developed during my years as a young apprentice.

In 1994, when I took over the historic City Tavern in Philadelphia, I discovered that life in eighteenth-century America paralleled traditional Black Forest culture in more ways than I ever could have imagined. When Germans began settling in Pennsylvania in 1680, they arrived with cooking techniques and recipes that they applied to the climate and foodstuffs of the New World. They maintained time-honored methods of preparing food, such as storing, preserving, and butchering local produce and meat, and even continued to follow many Old World recipes. When I was growing up in the Black Forest, we were, in many ways, still practicing the traditional cookery our ancestors transplanted to America two hundred years earlier.

Hospitality truly flourished during the post-World War II years of my early childhood, and it is this period I have tried to capture in Black Forest Cuisine. The flavorful recipes that follow are easy to prepare at home. Nearly all of the ingredients are available at local markets, and for those that are a bit more unique, I have provided a list of reliable sources. I encourage you to try these dishes so you may experience for yourself the uniqueness and magic of the Black Forest.

Guten Appetit!