Frankfood: Cheese, Cheese, the Musical Fruit?

I like music, I guess. I have a love-hate relationship with cheese, since I can’t exactly suppress thoughts that I’m just eating earwax. And frankly, I’m pretty ambivalent about hands: they help me eat Lucky Charms, but they always seem like they’re ready to turn on me. So, I really hadn’t much of an idea of how I was going to respond to one of Frankfurt’s strangest, and, appropriately, strangest-named specialty: “Handkäse mit Musik,” or “hand cheese with music.” Yes, it’s the best name for a long lost CAN record, but would it be the best thing to chew?

My time in Frankfurt was waning faster than my ability to stand clubs that don’t give out hand-stamps (seriously, WTF), so last night before returning home and washing off several days of research grime, I decided to hit up the most traditional Frankfurt cuisine place I could find, namely, Adolf Wagner on the south bank. This had been the scene of my first green sauce and apple wine, so it’s only appropriate that this is where I decided to finish off the Holy Trinity of the Frankfurt palette (frankfurters don’t count, as they taste no different here than they do at a Red Sox game). So, I went in, walked around awkwardly for a while noting that every table was reserved, allowed the waiter to emphatically insist that I join a table of elderly Deutscher, and as he handed me the menu, I proudly rejoined, “Oh, I know what I want already. I’d like the Handkäse mit Musik.”

I wish that there would have been some sort of scene as soon as I mentioned this most musical of cheeses wherein the waiter’s eyes widened and people gasped at other tables as they turned around to look at this most daring (and dashing) of cheese challengers. Unfortunately, I’m not dashing, or particularly daring, and gasps were only at their normal level for any time I attempt a German sentence. Before I could say Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, I had a plate of cold, stanky cheese before me.

Handkäse mit Musik is one of the least visually stimulating things since Michael Moore’s unshaven second chin. It’s shiny and off-white like a hunk of mozzarella, yet several times more translucent, so it rests on your plate like some sort of obese, alien worm. Fortunately, it’s covered in chopped onions sprinkled in vinegar and some spices, so it’s a partially clothed worm, but now isn’t that a creepy image?

However, upon slicing a brave piece adorned with plenty of onion garnish and gumming it around for a while, I was pleasantly surprised. The cheese was sour, and very strong, but something about the combination between cheese, onion, and vinegar was pleasant, as if the three overbearing flavors had fought each other on the way to my tongue, yielding a much milder and more mannered form of each. After my tentative first bite, I watched the cheese disappear about as quickly as a Ritter Sport on a rainy day. Frankfurt cuisine: check.