When the weather gets colder, comfort food is a small way to turn back time and to feel the love of a mother, aunt or grandmother — or to make new memories for your kids and grandkids. When I make my beef stew and the first wonderful scent floats through the kitchen, my thoughts go back in time to the apartment on the fourth floor, underneath the roof, where my grandparents Else and Manfred Schreiter, my aunt Evi, my mom Silvia and myself used to live in Wiesbaden, Germany. My mom, dad and myself had lived for two years in Saudi Arabia (1972-74), far away from big cities such as Riyadh or Jeddah.
My dad had moved the family because he was hired as a pilot instructor, teaching the Saudi military how to fly helicopters they had bought from the Americans and Italians. The only meat we got during our time in Saudi was goat. Back in Germany, it was such a treat being able to have pork and beef again.
My grandmother’s beef stew, Pfeffertopf, was one of my favorite dishes. She didn’t make it very often because beef was very expensive, almost as expensive as it is getting right now in the States due to the drought. “Pfeffertopf” means pepper pot, and the name goes back to the mid-1400s in Germany.
It has little to do with actual pepper. Every dish that had “exotic” spices such as pepper, saffron, nutmeg or even ginger got the name “pepper” added to it. Spices were highly valued in Germany and Europe in the 1400s.
Per example, in the 15th century, a pound of real pep.