Maultaschen: the Swabian parcel that hid meat from God

Overview

A Maultasche is a pasta parcel about the size of a bar of soap — far larger than a ravioli, squarer, and filled with a mixture of minced meat, smoked meat, spinach, onion, breadcrumbs and herbs. It is Swabian, it is old, and it is the regional dish you will meet most often in Augsburg without anyone calling it a local speciality, because it belongs to a region rather than to a city.

That region includes this one, and not loosely. Schwäbische Maultaschen have carried a protected geographical indication from the European Union since 2009, and the protected area is Baden-Württemberg plus the Bavarian administrative district of Swabia — which is where Augsburg sits. So the parcels served here are not a borrowing from over the border; the city is inside the zone.

The name people enjoy is the other one: Herrgottsbscheißerle, roughly “little things that cheat the Lord”. The story attached to it is that Cistercian monks at Maulbronn, during the Thirty Years’ War, were given a large piece of meat in Lent, minced it, mixed it with spinach and herbs, and hid it inside dough so that it could not be seen. It is a good story and it is a legend: it is not documented, and a competing account credits Waldensian settlers from northern Italy, who would have brought a filled pasta closer to a ravioli. Enjoy the first version; do not repeat it as history.

What to order

The filling barely varies. What you are actually choosing is the preparation, and there are three. A menu will list them plainly, and they are different meals rather than different garnishes.

• in der Brühe — served in a clear beef broth, two or three parcels to a deep bowl, usually with chives. The lightest of the three and the most common at lunch. If you order it expecting a plate of pasta, you will be surprised: this is a soup.
• geschmälzt — sliced or whole, buttered, and buried under fried onions. The richest, and the one to order if you want the dish at its most characteristic.
• geröstet — sliced and pan-fried, often with beaten egg poured over so it sets into something between a hash and an omelette. Traditionally what happens to yesterday’s leftovers, and it is genuinely the best of the three if the kitchen bothers.

Sides follow the preparation. Broth needs nothing. The other two usually arrive with Kartoffelsalat — Swabian potato salad, dressed with stock and vinegar rather than mayonnaise, which is worth knowing if you were bracing for the other kind.

Two or three parcels is a portion, and a portion is substantial.

What to avoid

The vacuum-packed supermarket version is everywhere and it is not the same object: the dough is thicker and rubbery, and the filling is smoother and blander because it is machine-made. It is fine at home in broth. It is not what you came for, and a restaurant serving it will be reheating rather than cooking.

Be careful with the protected label. It says at least one production stage happened in the region — it does not say the parcels were made in that kitchen, that morning, or well. A place that makes its own will usually say so, and that is the claim worth looking for, not the badge.

Do not treat it as Italian filled pasta. Ordering it “with tomato sauce” is possible in places that have given up, and it misses the point entirely: the dough is thicker and plainer, the filling is coarse, and everything about it is built for broth or butter.

And do not expect it to be a light lunch because it looked like a dumpling on the menu.

Practicalities

Expect roughly €12 to €16 for a portion in an ordinary restaurant, less for the broth version, which is often the cheapest thing on a lunch menu. Beer gardens and older Gaststätten are the reliable places; anywhere describing itself as modern is likely to be doing something to it.

It is eaten year-round, but there is a seasonal association worth knowing: the Lent connection in the legend has left it as a traditional dish for the Thursday before Easter, and around that week you will see it on menus that do not otherwise carry it.

Lunch is the natural moment, particularly for the broth version. Portions are large and kitchens close in the afternoon, roughly two until six, which catches visitors out.

Vegetarian versions exist and are increasingly common — usually spinach, cheese and herbs without the meat. They are pleasant. They also, obviously, dissolve the joke the name is built on.