Strammer Max

Strammer Max belongs to the Kneipe, the Imbiss counter, and the late supper at home when there's bread, ham, and eggs in the larder. It is strongest in Berlin, Saxony, and the north and east, where dark bread is not decoration, it's the base of the meal. This is not feast food. It is the plate you make when the cupboard is honest and the pan is already out.

The regions split over the bread and the meat. In the north you see dense rye or Schwarzbrot, dark rye bread, under smoked ham; in Berlin and Saxony, Mischbrot, mixed wheat-rye bread, is common, and some cooks use cooked ham instead of raw cured ham. In the south, a cousin might arrive with Leberkäse or mountain ham and a different name. Im Norden anders, im Süden anders. The rule stays the same: bread with backbone, ham with salt, egg with a soft yolk.

The technique is the egg. Fry it gently in butter or lard until the white is set and the yolk still moves, because the yolk is the sauce and the bread is waiting for it. Cook it hard and you've made a dry ham sandwich with a yellow lid. Salt the egg, not the ham; the ham already did its curing in the smokehouse. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss.

Toast or pan-warm the bread only enough to wake it up, then butter it while it's still warm so the fat sinks into the crumb. Nothing from a jar, nothing from a packet. Break the yolk at the table and let it run into the rye. Schön ist, was schmeckt.