Hanau Germany - Jaeger Schnitzel

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When I was stationed in Hanau Germany in the late 1970’s I had to live in a local hotel for about six months for various reasons.

The hotel, which was family owned and operated, was located halfway between the main part of Hanua and many of the U.S. Military facilities.

The owner Hans spoke fluent English and had the hotel filled with American soldiers and their families.

The Hotel had about 35 hotel rooms of various sizes, a good size bar that seated about 25, and a dining room that seated about 30. All in all this hotel was very nice and had just the right atmosphere you would expect on a vacation to Germany.

I ate the evening meal in the hotel just about every night or the nights I was not out working. One night I was at the hotel and ordered the Jaeger Schnitzel. I had not ordered that dish before and thought I would try it. The hotel was full and the place was jumping that night.

When my meal came out it looked GREAT, smelled great and tasted even better. The meal covered the very large plate and there was no way I was going to be able to eat all of it and this was long before doggie bags and I had no place in the room for a doggie bag.

My schnitzel was covered with mushrooms and gravy and as I said the entire meal was just out of this world. I decided not to eat the mushrooms in order to eat the schnitzel and all that came with it. There must have been a full size can of mushrooms on the schnitzel. I just scraped them off to one side and ate the rest of the meal. Wow, what a meal.

The waiter came out, saw the mushrooms piled up on the side of the plate and asked me if I would like to take them with me. I indicated I did not want the mushrooms and the waiter got upset and kind of pleaded with me to take the mushrooms. It thought he was getting a little excited about a bunch of mushrooms and told him in a very firm voice to remove the mushrooms!

Moments later there was a large disturbance in the kitchen and several folks were yelling and causing such a disturbance most of us in the restaurant stopped what we were doing to listen to the excited exchange of German coming from the kitchen.

Hans the owner and chef came walking out of the kitchen in his all white chef attire with MY plate with the full can of mushrooms in a pile.

Hans who was very red faced walked to my table sat the plate down and pointed at the mushrooms. I was not sure what was about to happen but knew it could not be a good thing.

Hans then gained his composure and explained that to waste mushrooms was not done in his hotel. Hans then took out a small bag and scooped the mushrooms into it, sealed it, and gave me the bag.

Hans told me to ask what was on the menu before I ordered it and that way I would not waste his food and would not upset everyone!!

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