Mecklenburger Rippenbraten

Mecklenburger Rippenbraten is northern Sunday food, from the farms and estate kitchens between Schwerin, Rostock, and the Baltic. Pork, apple, dried plum, a little vinegar in the pan. That is the old Mecklenburg taste, söötsuur, sweet-sour, not sugar for its own sake but fruit and acid working against fat.

Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. In the south a pork roast argues about crackling, beer, caraway, and dumplings. In Mecklenburg the argument is the filling: apples and Backpflaumen, dried plums, sometimes raisins, sometimes not, and enough pan juices to make a proper sauce. Das ist kein Bierzelt. It's a rib roast with the larder folded into it.

The technique is simple and decides the dish: start the roast in a cool oven and let the heat climb slowly. Cold-to-hot rendering gives the fat time to melt into the meat and the pan before the outside tightens; blast it hard at the start and the pork seizes, the filling leaks, and the lean eye eats dry. Runter mit der Temperatur. Brown comes later.

Keep the bones and rind if the butcher gives them to you. They go under the roast and into the sauce, because Weggeworfen wird nichts. The apples soften, the dried plums swell, the vinegar keeps the sweetness honest, and the pork comes to the table sliced thick, regional and unfussy. Schön ist, was schmeckt.