The Zeltlager Series: Stockbrot

A few nights around the Lagerfeuer, we got to enjoy the occasional campfire treat. One night they had chocolate bananas (wrap it in tinfoil and stick it in the fire for a few minutes, delightful!), on the last night we we had Glühwein (a sort of Christmas in July August treat since it's a typical Christmas season drink). But my favorite of these probably had to be the Stockbrot. 

Again, another example of why I love the German language so much. It is almost comically literal. Stock = stick, brot = bread. Thus, Stockbrot is bread on a stick that you cook in the campfire. 

Stockbrot was quite delicious, but that wasn't really the reason I loved it so much. It really had to do with the fact that it was so quintessentially German. Ask any American who has been to Germany for an extended time, heck, ask any German that has left the country for an extended time: they have some pretty damn good bread here. Seriously, they are all about the bread. None of that mass-produced, wonderbread stuff most of us grew up making our lunch sandwiches with. No, we're talking about fresh, hot off the shelf, straight from the bakery German bread. It is no coincidence that bakeries seem to be the only places open 7 days a week in Germany. So, naturally, I thought it was wildly appropriate that the typical cook-in-the-campfire treat here is bread. 

And yes, I made my own stockbrot as well.

I think you can tell a lot about a country by what kind of food it cooks in its campfires. In America, every kid sits around campfire roasting marshmallows and sticking them between two graham crackers with a piece of chocolate. There is nothing like the roasted sugar with more sugar between two sugary crackers goodness that is S'mores to an American kid. In Germany they wrap some dough around a stick and cook bread in the campfire. I'll let you draw your own conclusions...