From Baklava to Bokbier

This story begins in sixteenth-century Istanbul. And don't worry, this is not one of those stories of "Once upon a time there was a pastry chef. No. This story begins with a young sultan. Sultan Suleyman I was barely in the saddle and had big plans for the Ottoman Empire. Without study stress, gap year or quarter life crisis, the 25-year-old sultan let Europe know he was a serious player. Cities in the Balkans were falling by the bushes for the Ottomans, and Belgrade, Rhodes and Buda (today's Budapest) had to open their gates to Suleyman. But the great prize lay farther up the Danube: Vienna and there he was stranded.Defeated, the sultan returned and had to make do with Hungary and Croatia.

However, it is in Hungary where the germ of apple strudel lies. Indeed, Hungary would remain in the hands of the Ottomans for nearly two more centuries. Hungarians and Ottomans would therefore begin to influence each other culinarily. The famous Turkish pastry, baklava, could therefore be found more and more often on Hungarian tables. Due to the lack of walnuts, confectioners began adding apples and pine nuts to the baklava. It is now known as Almás Rétes, literally apple pastry.

But! In 1699, Hungary would fall into the hands of Austria. The Hungarians transferred the recipe from the Ottomans back to the Austrians. Soon the recipe spread throughout the German-speaking regions and became tremendously popular, and so the
pastry also eventually ended up in the United States. Revolution, poverty and dissatisfaction drove many Germans to the east coast of the United States. With them they took their cuisine with them. Examples include apple strudel, sauerkraut, frankfurters and hamburgers, but also lager (!).

Apfelstrudel continued to have strong connotations with Americans of German descent, and it also remained a quintessentially German dish in the collective memory of Americans. This is why it would eventually end up in Tarantino's widely acclaimed
Inglourious Bastards. One of the most famous scenes is the "Strudel" scene' where the. antagonist SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa interrogates the Jewish Shosanna Dreyfus in a very probing manner. To intimidate her, he orders her a glass of milk and an apple strudel with cream (both not kosher). The scene stuck with a lot of Tarantino fans, including our own Robbert Uyleman. He saw the scene and immediately thought "I'm going to make a beer with this. Typical, brewers.

That tastes like more! Check out the apple strudel recipe! Got even more appetite? Order our Apfelstrudel Doppelbock online in our webshop.