Fränkisches Schäufele

Fränkisches Schäufele is Franconian Sunday meat, and it turns up at Kirchweih, family birthdays, and the Gasthof table when the oven has time to do its work. It is not the Bavarian Haxe. Haxe is knuckle; Schäufele is pork shoulder on the blade bone, with the Schwarte, the rind, roasted skin-up until it cracks.

Regions fight over the word. In Franconia the shoulder goes into the oven fresh and uncured, with dark beer and root vegetables working underneath for the sauce. In Baden, Schäufele often means cured and smoked shoulder, simmered or baked, and it eats like a different dish. Im Süden anders, and even the south argues with itself.

The one technique is the rind. I score only to the fat, salt deep into the cuts, and start the roast in a cool oven so the fat under the skin renders before the meat tightens. Pour beer over the skin and you've built leather. Keep the liquid below, bring the heat up at the end, and the rind blisters hard enough to answer the knife.

Bone, rind, trimmings, pan vegetables, all of it pays rent in the gravy. Nicht aus dem Glas. The shoulder gives you the sauce if you give it time, and a Kloß, a potato dumpling, stands there for one reason: to catch it. Schön ist, was schmeckt.