Mardi Gras falls flat this year, but that is why the Geretsrieder did not have to forego a custom they have come to love: the Urzelkraut meal.
The Transylvanian Saxons simply cooked the traditional dish of their homeland to take away.
Geretsried
- the smell of sauerkraut and roasted Wammerl wafts towards you in the cold winter air on Saturday lunchtime in Seniweg.
There are two pots on the back of a forklift, each large enough to supply a Bundeswehr battalion.
In one there are cabbage rolls and dumplings stacked, in the other sauerkraut and pork.
Punctually at 12.30 p.m. the first hungry people arrive in their cars to collect the portions they had previously ordered by phone.
They have plastic or glass bowls with them, in which Kerstin Wagner and her daughter Maria in the Urzel robe fill the steaming food.
Peter Wagner meanwhile collects the seven euros per dish.
306 meals are sold within one and a half hours in the same way as at the drive-in counter of fast food outlets - in compliance with all hygiene rules.
"Until recently we had hoped to be able to hold our party on the Saturday before Shrove Tuesday in the council chambers, as we do every year," says Peter Wagner, head of the Geretsried Urzelzunft.
The hall and the band were ordered a year in advance.
But the lockdown ruined the plans.
So ten women and men rolled up their sleeves on Friday evening and prepared the wraps and the side dishes in Peter Wagner's workshop so that the Geretsrieder Transylvanian Saxons didn't have to go without the delicacy.
The metalworker's wife knows the secret recipe for the minced meat filling that goes into the cabbage leaves.
The shredded cabbage had been stored in barrels since November together with dill, savory, horseradish and salt in order to become sauerkraut.
On Saturday the Wagners cooked everything from 6.30 a.m.
Elisabeth and Arnold Blahm were the first to pull up to pick up their lunch.
“We love Krautwickerl.
We take part in the council chambers every year, ”say the pensioners.
They come from Medias in Transylvania, today's Romania.
The city is located 35 kilometers from Agnetheln in the Sibiu district.
This is where the original custom has its origin.
Horst Wagner, Peter Wagner's father, introduced it to Geretsried 35 years ago.
Legend has it that hundreds of years ago a castle in Transylvania was besieged by Turks.
A woman named Ursula disguised herself in a frightening, shaggy robe and thus put the enemy on the run.
“Urzel” is probably a modification of Ursula.
Later, journeymen are said to have used the robes to scare away thieves.
In Geretsried the Urzeln appear every Shrove Tuesday.
With whips, rattles and cowbells the masked women, men and children roam the streets and drive away the evil spirits.
A visit to the town hall beforehand is mandatory.
Klaus Durlesser thinks selling the Krautwickel “to go” is a “great idea”, as he says.
His home is Schäßburg.
When he was three years old, his family moved to Geretsried.
The sisters Hannelore Andree and Inge Mitran come directly from Agnetheln.
“The dish tastes like home,” they say.
Especially the sauerkraut with its typical herbs and spices reminds you of Transylvania.
But representatives of other national teams also appreciate the hearty Urzel meal.
Georg Hodolitsch, chairman of the traditional costume group of Germans from Hungary, had joined the waiting group so as not to miss the special lunch.
Tanja Lühr
