Deep in the fields of Potsdam, you’ll find Neumanns Erntegarten, a farm, orchard and store that sells regional produce from the Berlin-Brandenburg area. We journeyed out one cold October day to pick apples and sample some of Neumann’s many wonderful offerings.
A family-run business, Neumanns Erntegarten grows strawberries, cherries, apples, raspberries, plums, pears, blackberries, black currants, gooseberries, blueberries, grapes, kiwi and figs as well as a variety of vegetables. The day we went, they even had quince! All fruits and vegetables grown can be self-picked and bought by the kilo. We knew we were going to like Neumanns before we even entered the property.
Before hitting the orchard, we checked out the Hofladen and tried some of Neumann’s delicious grapes. They were unlike anything we’d tasted before – perfectly sweet yet delicately tart.
We got our apple collection buckets and were given a treasure map of all the different types of apples and where to find them in the orchard.
Ready to explore the field!
Hard to reach, but worth it.
Sam goes deeper…
…and inspects…
…and marvels.
We stumbled across some welcome relics from a season past…
…and found the perfect apple. Absolutely beautiful.
Once we were done picking, we went back to the Hofladen and enjoyed a snack from the meat counter – potato salad and pork frikadellen.
And so the long journey home began.
We indulged in a piece of wild smoked pig on the train…
…while drinking a delicious bottle of Doppelcaramel Bier! So sweet, so tasty!
Once home, we counted our treasure: we give you 117 apples!
Then we got to work and started working them into other formats…like apple chips from the apple peel.
We just put the apple peels into the oven for 10 minutes with some cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar. They char easily, so keep an eye on them.
We turned the pumpkin seeds we’d saved from our first dinner into…
…roasted pumpkin seeds spiced with sumac, cayenne pepper, salt and pepper.
We made a pumpkin-walnut loaf with the leftover pumpkin flesh.
Then we turned our attention to an apple pie with a cheddar cheese crust. Sam prepares the filling.
We used gänseschmalz (that’s goose fat) as a replacement for vegetable shortening in the crust.
The best part was the ever-visible flecks of cheddar cheese. We knew the savory crust with the super-sweet filling would be a killer combination. And of course, we couldn’t resist molding a bit of dough into a quaint apple shape for the pie’s surface.
We pulled the pie, perfectly golden-brown, out of the oven.
And it didn’t stop there! We also made a cinnamon apple cake.
And a very simple apple butter that called for apple cider. We found this Samanta (in honor of Samantha) juice as a substitute for apple cider (it’s not so commonly found in Berlin).
Nothing makes a person feel more domestic than jarring things.
Four apple dishes in one day…our efforts did not, however, even make a dent in the pile of apples we brought back from Neumanns. We feasted for on them for the days and weeks that followed.
