Anne's Blog: USO Soufflenheim

Last week little outing in France was to Haguenau and Soufflenheim. Soufflenheim is a very cute little village. You will find pottery and their store all over town. If one wants to buy pottery, one will find it here. Tones of different color, pattern, texture.
Here is a little history about the town

The Emperor Barbarossa granted Soufflenheim’s potters the right to extract their clay from the Hagenau forest, a right that persists to this day. In 1837 Soufflenheim still had 55 Pottery Businesses, which employed about 600 people. In 2006 there was only a third of those left.

The Pottery Artist make lots of “Useful” pottery made for Traditional Alsacien meal (Riesling Roster, Baeckeoffe (means "baker's oven." It is a mix of sliced potatoes, sliced onions, cubed lamb, beef and pork which have been marinated overnight in Alsatian white wine and juniper berries and slow cooked in a sealed ceramic casserole dish. Leeks, thyme, parsley, garlic, carrots and marjoram are other commonly added ingredients for flavor and color. Traditionally, the women would prepare this dish on Saturday evening and leave it with the baker to cook in his gradually cooling oven on Sunday while they attended the lengthy Calvinist church services once typical to the culture. The baker would take a "rope" of dough and line the rim of a large, heavy ceramic casserole, then place the lid upon it for an extremely tight seal. This kept the moisture in the container. On the way back from church, the women would pick up their casserole and a loaf of bread. This provided a meal to the Alsatians that respected the strict Calvinist rules of the Sabbath. Part of the ritual is breaking the crust formed by the rope of dough.), Kougelhopf (Gugelhupf consists of a soft yeast dough which contains raisins, almonds and Kirschwasser cherry brandy)