Chinesischer Turm e.V.The basket and what belongs in it
Brotzeit in the beer garden
Brotzeit is the practical side of the right to bring your own food. It is not a picnic: it has a fixed repertoire, its own knacks and an order at the table that is posted nowhere and applies all the same.
Beer garden culture
Brotzeit means what it says: time for bread. No hot kitchen, no courses, no change of cutlery. A board, a knife, and the rest comes out of the basket. In the beer garden it is the rule, not the exception, because the Beer Garden Ordinance expressly counts the right to bring your own food among the things that make a beer garden.
The repertoire
Radi
The white beer radish is the heraldic beast of the beer garden Brotzeit. You cut it with a radish slicer or freehand into one continuous spiral, salt it and leave it to stand until it draws water. Then it weeps, as people say, and has lost part of its bite. Whoever reaches for it too soon does the weeping.
Obazda
Ripe Camembert, butter, onion, ground paprika and a splash of beer, worked together with a fork until it spreads. The name says as much: in Bavarian, obazt means roughly mixed or dressed. Obazda began as a way of using cheese that was past its best day, a dish of thrift that rose to be a speciality.
Brezn
Large, lye-baked, dark and glossy outside, soft inside, with coarse salt. It is broken, not cut. In some beer gardens a pretzel seller walks along the rows. Strictly speaking that is no longer a Brotzeit brought from home, but it belongs to the order of the place.
Sausage salad
Lyoner or Regensburger sausage cut into strips, onion rings, vinegar, oil, often a gherkin. Cold, sour, filling. Add Emmental and it becomes Schweizer Wurstsalat, Swiss sausage salad, although it need never have been to Switzerland.
Steckerlfisch
Mackerel or char, speared on a wooden stick, salted and grilled over charcoal. The Steckerlfisch is the hot exception to the cold rule. You buy it on site, because it belongs on the table straight from the grill, not out of a plastic box.
What else the basket needs
- Board and knife
- A wooden board and a sharp knife stand in for crockery.
- Salt
- Indispensable for the Radi. Forget it and you will be asking at the next table.
- Tablecloth
- Chequered, blue and white or red and white. On a beer table it turns a stretch of wood into your own place without laying claim to the whole table.
- Napkin
- Cloth, not kitchen roll. The wind in a beer garden is quicker than any hand.
- What does not belong
- Your own drinks. You buy those in the beer garden; that is the other half of the bargain.
The order at the table
A Brotzeit brought from home belongs at the tables without a tablecloth, meaning the landlord's tablecloth. There you fetch your own, clear your own and take the crockery back. Where the landlord has laid the table, there is service, and there you order.
A beer garden table belongs to everyone. If you see four free places at a table for ten, you ask briefly, sit down, and people move up. Keeping whole tables free with spread-out jackets is thought ill-mannered, and rightly so.
Further reading
This page is only about what lands on the board. The wider Bavarian food culture beyond the beer garden, from Weisswurst to the Reinheitsgebot, is a subject of its own.
Frequently asked questions
What belongs to a Bavarian Brotzeit?
The classics are Radi, Obazda, Brezn and sausage salad, and on site often a Steckerlfisch. Add a board, a knife, salt and a chequered tablecloth.
How do you cut a Radi correctly?
With a radish slicer or freehand into one continuous spiral, then salt it and leave it to stand until it draws water. That takes away part of its bite.
What is Obazda?
A spreadable cheese preparation of ripe Camembert, butter, onion, ground paprika and a little beer. The name comes from the Bavarian obazt, mixed or dressed.
May you bring your own drinks to the beer garden?
No. The right covers food. Drinks are bought in the beer garden.
Where may you eat the Brotzeit you brought?
At the tables without the landlord's tablecloth, that is, in the self-service area. At the laid tables there is service, and you order.