Himmel un Ääd met Flönz

Himmel un Ääd belongs to the Rhineland, strongest around Köln and Düsseldorf, and it sits on the table when the larder is doing its work: stored potatoes, winter apples, onions, and blood sausage from the butcher's careful end of the pig. Heaven is the apple. Earth is the potato. Then comes Flönz, the Rhenish black pudding, fried beside it until the outside catches and the inside stays soft.

The regions don't agree, good. In Köln you want Flönz with onions and often a dark spoon of Rübenkraut, sugar beet syrup, on the side. Westphalia may make it sturdier, with coarser blood sausage and a sharper apple note. Further south, they know blood sausage, but this plate is not theirs in the same way. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. German cooking has borders inside it.

The technique that decides the dish is heat. Fry the Flönz too hard and the casing splits, the filling runs, and you've made a pan of black pudding crumbs. Keep the pan moderate, flour the slices lightly, and let the fat work slowly until the surface is crisp and the middle is just hot. Runter mit der Temperatur. The onions get the same patience, because fast onions are sharp and pale, and slow onions turn sweet enough to stand with the apple.

Mash the potatoes while hot because hot potato breaks cleanly and drinks butter. Fold in the apple last so it stays bright against the earthiness. Weggeworfen wird nichts: a spoon of the onion fat goes through the mash, and the pan is wiped with a piece of rye if nobody is looking. Schön ist, was schmeckt.