Saumagen

Saumagen is a German dish popular in Palatinate. The name means "stomach of a female pig" but the stomach is not eaten at all. Indeed it is used like a mantle (German Pelle) as it is the same with sausages. Saumagen consists of potatoes, carrots and pork meat together with several spices. Sometimes beef is used, too. The larger ingredients are cut down to pieces which have a size of about 0.5 cm. After that Saumagen is cooked with hot water and either served directly with Sauerkraut and mashed potatoes or stored in the refridgerator for later use. To warm it again the Saumagen is fryed. The typical drink for Saumagen is a dry white wine.

Saumagen was invented in the 18th century from palatinate farmers which used the carryovers they had to create a new dish. Today the ingredients are no left-overs at all, indeed the butchers creating Saumagen use very high quality components.

Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor from 1982-1998 was the one who made Saumagen very popular in the 1990s. Kohl as palatine served Saumagen to almost every foreign visitor such as Maggy Thatcher[?], Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan.

Recipe

 1 small pork stomach (order at your butcher)
 375 g fatless pork belly (German Schweinebauch)
 375 g pork meat
 375 g ground meat (German Bratwurstfüllsel)
 1-2 rolls (put in some milk)
 1 kg boiled potatoes
 3 eggs
 2 onions
 1 bunch of parsley
 1-2 garlics
 salt, pepper, marjoram and nutmeg

Water the pork stomach over night and use some twine to close 2 of the 3 apertures. Cut the meat and the potatoes in small cubes. Stew the onions and the cutten parsley in some butter. Squeeze the garlic. Mix everything with the rolls and the eggs and spice it well then put everything into the pork stomach and close the third aperture. Put the stomach in hot water and cook for 2-3 hours. The water must not boil! Cut the stomach in 2 cm thick slices and serve them with mushed potatoes and sauerkraut. Alternatively you can store the cooked stomach in the fridge and fry it when you want to eat.