Reader’s Digest UK – August 2019

READER’S DIGEST

now a Unesco World Heritage site,
is unique in that it's one of the
most impressive and complete
monuments of late 19th- and early
20th-century German architecture,
with its Neo-Roman churches, Neo-
classical government buildings and
university, and even Jugendstil and
Orientalist residential structures.
More names are engraved in
the edifice of the main building of
the university: Schiller, Humboldt,
Goethe, and other famous Germans.
Among them I discover only the
name of French philosopher
Descartes, in modest recognition
of 190 years of French rule that
preceded the German conquest.
It's a testimony to how both sides
denied the other’s legacy in the city

and the region beyond, with the local

population as the eternal victims

of distant Paris and Berlin alike.

But it has created one of the most

fascinating cities in Europe and even

a unique cuisine.

On an earlier, brief visit to

Strasbourg it was baeckoeffe that

struck me as a dish that could

potentially serve as the perfect

metaphor for Alsace. Its German

elements are typically meat and

potatoes, whereas the addition of

white wine gives the casserole an

unmistakable French twist.

Almost every restaurant in

Strasbourg and beyond serves it. But

beware, there's baeckoeffe and there

is Baeckoeffe, just as there is riesling

and Riesling.

Clockwise from top left: Orientalist

architecture in Neustadt;

Strasbourg cathedral spire rising

470ft above German-style rooftops;

of Strasbourg