About a specialty that is very popular with connoisseurs – unless they are vegan – at the turn of the year. In addition to the culinary delights, it is also about winning over the New Year to loved ones.
Win New Year
At the turn of the year, according to old custom, several letters with happy New Year wishes fluttered into the house. It read, for example: “Dear Mr. . . . , I woit eana only a guads neis Jahres abgwinga.” Win the new year – it’s so nice that this custom is still maintained today. Of course, there is a deeper meaning behind this, as can be seen in Johann Andreas Schmeller’s Bavarian dictionary from the 19th century. In this incomparable work, under the keyword New Year, one can read: “Win someone the New Year, forestall them with congratulations on the New Year; let them feel our superiority right from the start.” Schmeller knew the custom as a kind of competition. Whoever congratulates first wins.
One learns from Emma H., who comes from Dorfen, that the winning process was different for her great-aunt. She ran to her as a girl on New Year’s Eve, “then chatted a bit, and before it got dark, I said, now I have to go again, oiso, then I wish you a good year.” Thereupon the aunt replied: “Now it’s the end of the year. Wait a minute!” Then she opened her purse and rewarded her with a 20-mark note.
Rankel smoked meat
A smoked meat is smoked pork meat. Those who have not yet joined the vegetarian and vegan camp will rave about it, especially if they received a smoked rankerl as a Christmas present. The production of the smoked requires skill and patience. You need the meat of a sow that you feed yourself if possible, a sauce based on secret recipes and a good feel for smoking, i.e. smoking. The meat is first seasoned with salt, garlic and all kinds of spices and then smoked in a smokehouse. A synonym for the Rankerl (tendrils) is the word Zenterling. The Franconians say Gracherts, the Oberpfälzer Schraidl. A centerling used to be the size of a pork quarter, today smaller rankerl are smoked. The author Georg Queri created an incomparable monument to this delicacy in 1909: “And then a pound of smoked meat from a young sow – that’s where world history ends when you have such a good crumb and I could eat it clean on a Friday too and do not fear my sins.”