No, we are not talking about Boris or Donald Trump! Devil’s fart is probably more widely known as pumpernickel, a dense German rye bread that’s name actually means “devil’s fart”. Apparently it has flatulence inducing properties. Never having experienced flatulence we thought it might be interesting to try it! And if the packaging is anything to go by it may have other properties as well!! Okay, okay, if this all smacks of desperation then so be it. London is in danger of being overwhelmed by COVID so restrictions are becoming ever stricter everywhere. Who knows, the way things are going, we may not be allowed to look out the window, never mind go on sconing adventures.

Internationalism

The implications for our readers continuing education is worrying, however. Hence, following our previous post on Norwegian skillingsboller, we now bring you the German devil’s fart. It comes courtesy of our Münster correspondents who gave us some as a present. Many thanks to them for introducing us to pumpernickel and helping expand the cultural horizons of our readers.

Bad smells

It used to be found only in north west Germany but now you can get it pretty much anywhere. That said, European and American pumpernickel are different. The American pumpernickel has added ingredients and a higher baking temperature to provide shorter production times. Why oh why does the US need everything ‘fast’? Just chillax and do it properly! Perhaps, with Trump and his compadres only remaining as a bad smell, they may be able to do just that. Or is that wishful thinking?

So how do you eat pumpernickel?  As novices we started by slicing it the wrong way, before realising it was already sliced. It’s pretty solid and a little bit sticky so tends to appear like one solid dark block when it’s unwrapped. A bit like a pack of cheese slices. Not an auspicious start but how would it taste? That’s all that matters after all! In order to give it a fighting chance we decided to try it with a variety of toppings – cheese and ham, cheese  tomato and chutney, salami and mustard … and lastly just with some homemade plum jam.

Honest, officer!

The bread itself has a grainy texture and a slightly sweet flavour that’s unusual but quite pleasant. Pat gave top marks to the cheese and ham. My preference was for the salami and mustard though all of them were actually very good. Will we be rushing out in search of devil’s fart? Well, if we cannot go out for scones then we can hardly go out for that. What would we tell the police if stopped? We’ll let you know about the flatulence … or maybe not!

ps: Our pumpernickel was a present and this week we received another. A parcel of framed photos from fellow photographer Dave Hunt. He operates from his Wildgrass Studio in beautiful Glen Lyon and specialises in vintage and fine art photography. Some time back we helped him experiment with his wet plate collodion technique. None of this instant digital nonsense for Dave, no, no, no!  He has to coat a plate of glass with light sensitive material, expose it in the camera while still wet and develop it all within about fifteen minutes. If it’s not quite right you just start again … simple!

He misplaced the plates during a house move but found them again recently and sent them on. How can we describe the results? “Brilliantly vintage”, perhaps … just like the sitters! The wonderful thing is that the 5″x4″ plate is completely unique … not another like it. Many thanks Dave, we love them all. Dave also says that these images should last for 200 – 300 years … and to let him know if they don’t. If you find life a bit too fast you can find out about this technique at one of Dave’s workshops. Can’t guarantee he will have such fantastic subjects though.