Fischbrötchen in Lubmin
Breakfast buffet, love locks, and a perfect sandwich on the Baltic coast
Hello! My name is Rebecca May Johnson, I am a writer and cook and this is my Substack. This week’s newsletter is about a trip to the Baltic coast in Germany: a buffet, a fish roll, a walk, and a recipe and a meal suggestion.
Fischbrötchen in Lubmin
On Thursday in Wieck, near Lubmin: breakfast buffet at the Hotel Maria. (n.b. there were small bags of jelly babies on the towels when we arrived in the room.) More a B&B actually, a house, only breakfast served. There is a sign on the front door saying: ‘we do not have a restaurant.’
On the tables in the corner of a room that can hold around twenty people. Bowls of boiled eggs still warm with jammy yolks. The option of scrambled or fried eggs written on a chalkboard Rührei oder Spiegelei. Large bowls of plain and purple yogurt, granola, milk jug, 2 juice jugs orange and yellow in colour, smoked salmon plate, board of various salami and cured ham, a plate of chopped red peppers and sliced cucumber, a bowl of quark with herbs in, a plate of tomato and mozzarella, cereal, a board of sliced square hard cheese. Jams in large pots, blueberry and strawberry. Sachets of honey and chocolate spread. Sliced bread and rolls.
Things I did not realise at first: the practice of picking up one of the small baskets so you can gather a basket of rolls to bring to the table, thereby relieving yourself of the need to go back and forth for more bread.
I could not see where the glasses were for juice even though everyone around me had the stemmed slim glasses from which they were drinking. In the hushed breakfast room I didn’t dare ask someone so I snuck behind the bar and got short tumblers, which felt conspicuously incorrect on the table when the host brought us coffee in insulated steel jugs. Sam subsequently pointed out where the glasses were.
The waterfront of Wieck, a short drive from Lubmin, is beautiful. Small houses, many thatched, flowers, a bank along which you can walk, then open water.
The night before. A pink sky and watching boats glide through ultra-modern bright orange flood gates, some tying up in the harbour and some continue further through a lifting bridge made of wood. A couple park their bicycles and fling themselves into the water and swim out and out. Ahead of us as we walk along the stone pier to look out over the water, a pair of teenage lovers. At the end of the pier, they spend a long time looking at locks that couples have attached to metal grids around the circular space. We slow our walk, wait until they turn back – it is inappropriate for two couples to be there at the same time.
The council have put up a sign saying that people may only attach love locks to the numbered panels 1-6 on the guard fence round the end of the pier. Sam points out that the panels can be removed as they are of a thin metal grill. I look and agree I think you could cut through it with with bolt croppers. In between each numbered, removable panel on the guard fence are bars made from thick metal that would require much heavier equipment to remove. There are no love locks on the thick metal bars. The situation – that each panel numbered 1-6 only has a smattering of locks, but that it was necessary to put up a sign due to the frequency of lovers’ desire to attach the locks – indicates to me that the council removes the panels 1-6 quite frequently. First: the government administration of people’s gestures towards eternal love is very funny. The thought lovers in their moment of intensity, read the sign and locate their lock where directed. Second: Where do the removed love locks go? Are they scrapped and melted down? A tragic heap. The locks failed. But a failed lock is a less sinister prospect. I am reminded of a medieval German poem from the twelfth century
Dû bist mîn, ih bin dîn.
des solt dû gewis sîn.
dû bist beslozzen
in mînem herzen,
verlorn ist das sluzzellîn:
dû muost ouch immêr darinne sîn.
(Anon.)
Du bist mein, ich bin dein.
Dessen sollst du gewiss sein.
Du bist eingeschlossen
in meinem Herzen,
verloren ist das Schlüssellein:
Du musst auch für immer darin bleiben.
(trans. Thomas Bein)
You are mine, I am yours.
of this you can be sure.
you are locked
in my heart,
the little key is lost:
you must remain there forever.
(trans. RMJ)
Hundreds of love locks melted down into a pool of hot metal. Hearts set free to become other objects. A hammer of love, a screw of love, a wrench of love, a fork of love, a teaspoon.
*
At the fish hut restaurant that night: cold cucumber soup flavoured with a little dill and vinegar. Fried plaice with potatoes, and green beans cooked with bacon. A man hides and then jumps out to surprise his friend on a nearby table.
*
After the morning buffet we drive into the woods in Lubmin. The aim is to get near the gas terminal and decommissioned DDR era nuclear power station – they do tours! – both of which are of research interest to S. Intermittently, every 100m or so there are signs with very good illustrations about animals and birds in the woods – including wild boar and deer. Birds are divided into songbirds, speaking birds and birds of prey. There is information on plants and their medicinal uses. The smell in the woods is sweet and earthy. I keep watch while Sam pisses against a tree. Nobody comes. We see no wild boar either, for which I am mostly grateful. I had thought, drawing on information probably gleaned from a tv show so long as we stay away from their young we should be ok! I realise that the trees would be no use for escape from wild boar attack – the tall pine trees where we are while I am having this thought have no lower branches that I could climb. When I am worrying about animal attack – mainly cows in the UK, but also dogs of unknown temperament – I look around for trees I can scale. We pass by various side tracks leading to the beach because S is set on the gas works.
We reach the end of the woods and there is a meadow-like expanse with yarrow and echium vulgare and grasses and then a ten-metre-high earth bank, the other side of which is the gas works. Sam comments on the different strategies by which they have concealed the gas works. The day before the walk we drove around trying to get close on the other side of the site, and though the map said we could follow a road going past it, we were put off by its un-roaded appearance and encountered a vast open expanse of neglected concrete with abandoned buildings and detritus. On this side is a nature reserve along the beach, the woods, bird boxes and no roads.
Sam then I climb the steep bank to look at the gas works from a distance. Look at it! Then we carefully edge down and back into the meadow space. Then I piss behind a tree and Sam keeps watch. We go on. I am getting bored of being in this passage between the trees and the bank and am hungry. But Sam wants to see more. We approach a building site though the path appears to continue through it, so we go on. OMG they are welding a gas pipeline, metres away. Sam is excited. The workmen do not appear bothered by us. I am nervous about the digger looming over us on top of a giant earth heap swivelling round and shovelling with abandon. It does not come for us.
We keep going and reach the river inlet where a huge ship carrying liquid natural gas is stationed. Unlike the vast container ships where we live that carry their cargo on top, this ship has a very large broad hull for containing the cooled gas in liquid form below deck.
We walk towards the sea past a boat park containing neglected looking yachts for sale, past a marina with lots of boats tied up and a crow making a lot of noise, hopping forward chasing another crow along the pontoons until it has to hop off.
Along the boardwalk to the beach. The sand is pale almost white. We turn back into the woods followed by a group of grey-haired women wearing rucksacks doing a 10km walk, then back to the car and a short drive to lunch.
To get change for the carpark near the food stalls Sam buys a circular fried pastry dusted in icing sugar and then coffee and negotiates hard for change with the man who has been asked this too many times. The pastry – a Knieküchle – is delicious. The day before when we came for a first look at Lubmin Sam bought sour cherry ice cream to get change for parking which was incredible – but she is not open today.
I went swimming on the day we got ice cream – not too cold, sea grass, not too deep, wavy – but decide against it today and instead head for the area with seating and tables and some permanent food huts. On Google maps the ‘Fischbrötschen aller Art’ had lots of positive reviews and we had seen Fischbrötchen (fish rolls) advertised everywhere around the coast.
As we walked into to the outdoor food court I saw a woman eating a plate of hardboiled eggs in mustard sauce with beetroot salad and mashed potato from another stall and was tempted. I love eggs in this way. But set on the fish rolls we ordered ‘Matjesfilet’ (soused herring) Brötchen with salad, creamy herb remoulade, pickled gherkins, and rounds of mild sliced onion. The menu listed a seasonal speciality which was ‘Erdbeer Matjes’ with salad and fresh cheese, strawberries, strawberry jam and onions. I exclaimed too loudly at the strangeness of this while queuing. But then both women ahead of me in the queue ordered it. I gawped as the man spread strawberry jam on the roll and then added fish. When we received our rolls, I was happy to note that the roll was warm and crisp on the outside. Temperature is so affecting. The filling was balanced between sharpness, creamy remoulade and the fish which was a little sweet and not overpowering. A perfect sandwich, we agreed.
A Salad Recipe and a Meal
BLT Salad. Very good!
Ingredients
4-6 rashers of streaky bacon
1 c. six inch long section of ciabatta
1 clove of garlic
1/2-1 avocado, cut into cubes
c. 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 head romaine lettuce, washed dried and torn into large pieces
a few basil leaves
Dressing
2 tablespoons of bacon fat
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt and black pepper
How to make
Cook the bacon in a pan until crisp and save the fat. Cut the bacon into bite size pieces Half the ciabatta lengthways and brush with oil and grill until crisp and then rub with garlic and tear into chunky 1 inch pieces. In a large salad bowl arrange the tomatoes, avocado, basil, bacon, bread and lettuce. Whisk the dressing ingredients together. Toss the salad and dressing together thoroughly and serve.
Piedmontese Peppers, Potatoes, and a Fried Egg
This meal evolved as I was making it. I first began making Piedmontese peppers, without thought of what would come next. I initially was going to make oven chips but found some potatoes and it felt lacking still, so added a fried egg and it was such a good meal. The garlic-anchovy-butter concoction that forms in the peppers making the most wonderful sort of sauce for the potatoes. A soft egg yolk running into the potato is essential.
Ingredients
Some red peppers
A couple of garlic cloves, enough to put a slice of garlic in each pepper
A few small tomatoes, cut into halves - enough for a half or two in each piece of pepper
A tin of anchovies
Unsalted butter - enough for a small piece in each pepper
Olive oil
How to Make
Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
Cut the peppers into quarters lengthways and remove the seeds and pith and place in a roasting tray. Into each piece put a couple of thin slices of garlic, one or two little pieces of tomato, half a fillet of anchovy cut into a few smaller bits, a small nut of butter, a little olive oil, and a pinch of salt. Bake them in the oven for 20-30 minutes, until cooked but a little al-dente still. Arrange on a dish and serve. Garnish with parsley if you want.
Eat with the below accompaniments as a meal, or as a canapé with a drink.
Potatoes
Peeled and cubed potatoes. Tossed in olive oil and then roasted in an oven. Then seasoned with salt.
Fried Egg
Crack an egg each into hot fat. Cook until the white is set and serve straight away, over the potatoes.
News and Events
Adam Federman wrote a review of Small Fires for The New Republic, published yesterday.
Tickets are for sale for my event with Alicia Kennedy at Bold Fork Books (online) on 19th July.
Tickets for my talk with Nyla Ahmad at The Edinburgh International Book Festival on 17th August are for sale (in person event).
“A fork of love, a teaspoon.” Perfect first line of a poem.