Germans also make a chilled beer soup with currants and grated pumpernickel bread, seasoned with lemon, sugar, cinnamon and cloves, and garnished with pumpernickel croutons or little airy egg-white dumplings cold spiced red or white wine soup, adorned with crunchy almond macaroons a refreshing buttermilk soup embellished with stewed fruit or whipped cream and a pale-green sorrel soup containing dill, sour cream, diced cucumbers and chopped hard-boiled eggs, served with an ice cube in each bowl. Germans and Austrians both enjoy a variety of cold fruit-and-berry soups, at the beginning or end of a meal, as much as their northern neighbors do. In the German language, cold soups in general are called Kaltschalen (“cold bowls”). You’ll now find Rote Grütze served throughout Germany, especially in the summer, from hotel breakfast buffets to the dessert menus of fancy restaurants, from beer halls to local festivals-the ruby-red mélange is topped with vanilla sauce, whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. It’s considered a specialty from the northern part of Germany, particularly the region of Schleswig-Holstein (near Denmark), where it’s known as Rodgrütt. Rote Grütze is the German version of this same dish. Considered a “national dish” of Denmark, this chilled pudding-soup is actually very popular throughout the Nordic countries, where you’ll find it on the table for breakfast, served as a soup before the meat course of the day’s main meal, or eaten as a summer dessert. Occasionally blueberries, blackberries and black currants are added, which give the mixture a deeper, darker color. Surely the most famous Danish cold soup is rødgrød-literally “red groats”-a kind of thin pudding made from red fruits and berries (cherries, red raspberries, strawberries, red currants) cooked together, lightly thickened, then served cold, garnished with milk or cream. Sometimes this pale-colored soup is poured over crumbled oatcakes in a bowl, topped with whipped cream and served at the end of a meal. The Danes make a cold buttermilk soup, which can be cooked or uncooked, seasoned with sugar and lemon juice and thickened with eggs or ground rice. Often these cold soups are garnished with a dollop of whipped cream or with heavy cream poured over the top. Cooked cold soups start with heating the ingredients together, then thickening them with flour, potato starch, cornstarch, arrowroot, sago, tapioca, semolina, ground rice or beaten eggs, before the soup is chilled for serving. Uncooked cold soups of this type are made simply by mixing the fruits and berries with the liquid and other flavorings, which are mashed together or puréed in a blender or food processor (much like a fruit smoothie). Often these are combined with buttermilk, soured milk, yoghurt or sour cream, with a little lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon added, too. The bounty of summer’s harvest turns up in many Scandinavian soup bowls: apples, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches and pears blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, lingonberries, strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, currants and raisins and even other ingredients such as rhubarb and rosehips. The Scandinavians have a large repertoire of colorful cold soups made from fruits and berries (fresh or dried, bottled or frozen). The next time you travel in Europe, look for these classic chilled soups, some of which are regional or national specialties. Some cold soups are considered solely summer fare, whereas others are served year round. In various parts of Europe, chilled soups are also eaten for breakfast, for snacks, as a main dish of a light meal and even for dessert. Most cold soups are eaten at the start of a meal, but in elaborate dinners they are sometimes served as palate cleansers between courses. They can be cooked or uncooked, thick or thin, smooth or chunky, sweet or savory, plain or garnished. Others are based on vegetables and meat stocks, sometimes spiked with wine. Some of these soups are made with fruits and berries, often combined with milk products. Chilled soups have been popular in Europe for centuries, from Scandinavia in the north to Spain in the south. If the thought of eating a chilled soup leaves you cold, think again. Now that global warming seems to be raising temperatures in Europe, you can beat the heat on your next summer trip by eating cold soup.
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