Meat Pile

Sometimes I feel I should have introduced another criterion for evaluating Brettljausen: presentation. Indeed, it is much more pleasant to consume cold cuts from a nicely decorated plank, with a flower – hopefully, edible – on the top than to dig into a hastily arranged mess of meat and cheese. Of course, I know perfectly well that things get mixed up inside me anyway, and honestly I would hate to see how they look like, hence, I don’t consider good looks as important as, for example, taste. Still, there are a few things that one simply does not do – not for aesthetic, but for plain common sense reasons. One does not put Liptauer on top of Schweinsbraten or Speck, for instance. One may decide to fold some cuts to make them look nicer or simply pile the slices on top of each other, but avoid mixing ingredients in a way that their individual flavors become unrecognizable.

Heichinger had done something strange. Probably inspired by pizzas, the cook had filled the plank with a couple of different types of Geselchtes, hiding slices of black pudding and head cheese underneath. On the top, the cook had placed three balls of spread (Liptauer, Verhackert and very liver-y liver) and a couple of pointless cheese slices. The outcome was very weird; the only way to eat it was to cut across, approaching the Brettljause as if it were a thin round steak.

I would lie if I said that this strange way of eating was not enjoyable. The quality of the Geselchtes ensured that the meat bits were tasty, but one of the most important features of a Brettljause, variety, was almost entirely lost. I don’t remember how the head cheese or the black pudding tasted like – I simply did not notice them under the layer of other meat.

What saved Heichinger’s Brettljause for me was the Verhackert, which was extremely finely minced (having no lumps of chewy fat is always good) and had a very particular flavor of something old, as if having been kept for a long time in a deep cellar. I know this does not sound particularly positive, but at least this was something to lift the Brettljause out of a complete mediocrity, ever slightly.