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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Here’s how to make the most of Thanksgiving in Germany

If Turkey-day was your most beloved holiday back Stateside, you might be feeling a bit blue knowing that it’s not exactly a thing in Deutschland. But we’re here to help make those cranberry sauce-soaked, gravy-covered dreams come true.

Published: 27 November 2019 18:00 CET
Updated: 28 November 2019 17:00 CET
Here's how to make the most of Thanksgiving in Germany
Photo: Depositphotos

1. Track down a turkey – or choose not to

As you may have noticed, there aren’t exactly rows of frozen turkeys on offer in German supermarkets as in the US come November. But there are still options if you’re set on noshing on some slowly roasted North American fowl.
 
High-end department stores, like KaDeWe in Berlin, often provide the pricey opportunity to scoop up a frozen turkey, but you can also try calling up a local butcher to order one in advance.
 
An alternative is to settle for a whole chicken or goose – much more common in grocery stores – or simply pick up part of a turkey, called Pute or Truthahn in German.
 
2. Find food substitutes
 
Cranberry sauce is a classic accompaniment on Thanksgiving. Photo: Deposit Photos.
 
As with turkey, sometimes you can’t always find the right ingredients you need for American fare. Take cornbread, for example. The most important component is cornmeal, but this doesn’t really exist in German cuisine. The best substitute that this American has found is called Maisgrieß – and it always turns out delicious.
 
On the other hand, thanks to globalization there are ever more North American products on offer in German supermarkets, especially Edeka, Lidl and Kaisers, many of which often have small ‘American’ sections.
 
I’ve spotted cranberries in Kaisers for the past several years, and even once in Aldi. But a substitute can also be Preiselbeeren, known as lingonberries or cowberries in English. They have a similar taste to cranberries and can be found already jarred as a jam or preserves in many German supermarkets.
 
3. Find the right equipment
 
Tracking down a proper pie dish can be another challenge since apparently this treat is not so common in Germany.
 
For future reference, if you love making pies, it’s probably a good idea to have an American bring a pie dish along on their next visit – or pick one up yourself when you’re in the US.
 
But when you can’t get your hands on one in time, try getting creative with a tart or torte pan, or Tortenbodenform.
 
 
4. Learn to convert into metric measurements
 
If you’re looking to use grandma’s traditional cornbread stuffing recipe, but realize you have no clue how to measure out the right proportions using the metric system, don’t worry.
 
There are plenty of online converters to do the hard work for you – like the one on Allrecipes.com.

And if you’re really in doubt, try using a similar recipe by a British website instead (which like the BBC tend to have grams and ounces).

5. Go to an already planned Thanksgiving dinner
 
 

Friends. Food. American Football. Happy thanksgiving y'all! #thanksgiving #nfl #american #dinner #friends

A photo posted by Belushi's Bars (@belushis) on Nov 26, 2015 at 9:59am PST

 
If you decide to just skip the hassle of tracking down ingredients through multiple stores, there may be at least a couple pre-arranged Thanksgiving events in your area – even some with (American) football on offer. Take a look at any local American bars, hotels or restaurants to see what they have planned.
 
Here’s a list of some to consider, and some may require reservations. Some also take place over the weekend, and one belated celebration in Cologne occurs on December 7th. 
 
Berlin

Hard Rock Cafe Thanksgiving lunch celebration

November 28th, starts at 12 pm 

Kurfürstendamm 224 

Thanksgiving cooking course at Kochwerk

November 28th, from 6 pm to 10 pm

Roelckerstraße 105

Thanksgiving Buffet at Dasclubhaus

November 28th, from 6:30 pm to 10 pm

Roedernstraße 16

Hamburg

The American Club’s Thanksgiving Dinner

November 28th, from 6:30-10:30 pm

Bugenhagenstraße 8

Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner at Das Auswanderermuseum BallinStadt Hamburg

November 28th, from 6:30-11pm

Veddeler Bogen 2

Frankfurt/Hesse

Thanksgiving Dinner at Grand Hotel Hessischer Hof

November 28th, from 6:30 pm

Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 40

American Thanksgiving Dinner Buffet at Champions

November 28th, from 6:30-11:30 pm

Hamburger Allee 2

Thanksgiving at Schloss Vollrads

November 28th, from 6 pm

Vollradser Allee

65375 Oestrich-Winkel / Winkel

Munich

Thanksgiving Dinner and American Football at The Kennedy’s

November 28th, from 5 pm

Sendlinger-Tor-Platz 11

Friday Thanksgiving Dinner at Meatingraum

November 29th, from 7pm to 10 pm 

Gollierstraße 38

Thanksgiving Buffet at Tivoli Restaurant

November 28th, from 6 to 9 pm

Tucherpark 7

Cologne

Sunday Thanksgiving Dinner at Hard Rock Cafe

December 1st. Menu available from 12 pm – 10 pm

Gürzenichstraße 8

Belated Thanksgiving Dinner at Restaurant Mederanno

December 7th, from 7 to 10 pm

Plectrudengasse/Lichhof 12

Article updated November 27th, 2019.

Member comments

  1. As I’m A Canadian Living in Germany our Thanksgiving is usually in October. But we decided to have a Thanksgiving this weekend with friends from Nuremberg. (We are in Würzburg) as a test for Christmas when our boys are here. I found fresh cranberries to make sauce and remembered how to make pie crust for a cherry pie. 10lb turkey (4kgs) from REAL and hopefully all good lol!

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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