THE BIRTH OF THE HAMBURGER
Believe it or not, the hamburger really did originate in Hamburg, Germany. Its present inhabitants prefer to call it by a more elaborate Teutonic name, “Deutsches Beefsteak”, and one can possibly surmise that they are peeved with their Nordic sailor ancestors for so popularising this rounded meat patty's virtues on the West side of the Atlantic that it became mistakenly associated with the American heritage.
Peeved or not, this city takes interest and pride in matters of cuisine, especially seafood. It is rumoured that even its Aalsuppe or eel soup can water the mouth of the most discriminating Gallic gourmet. Hamburg's many restaurants serve Elbe sole whose renowned delicacy and tenderness defy the clichés about the lack of subtlety in German cooking.
Rundstück warm - roast pork served on brown bread generously steeped in sauce - and Snuten and Puten - pig's snout and trotters - are traditional Hamburgian dishes that provide good fare for the inner man. All of these foods can be washed down by Doppelkümmel, a local, caraway-flavoured Schnapps that supposedly rivals Danish Akvavit in fire power.
The citizens of Hamburg like to correct the common impression that their city is exclusively a trading and shipping centre devoid of fun. Its after-dark nightspots, ranging from sophisticated cabarets to sordid sea dives, vie with Berlin for international prominence.
Entertainment in them is often witty, atopical and satiric in the best Brecht-Weill tradition. Every night the St. Pauli district is thronged with seafaring visitors from all parts of the World, who wander its main streets and back alleyways with almost as much gaiety and abandon as Renaissance carnival revellers. But sedate tourists and inhabitants usually find Hamburg's newly-built Opera House, its various concert halls and assorted theatres more to their liking.
[Produced for the North Cape Cruise departing New York 29 June 1963]