Luxembourg Christmas Markets

I’m back!  Feeling quite a bit better and ready to at least take a leisurely stroll through the markets. I started my day with my usual cereal and coffee, and I’m so glad to be adding coffee back to my diet. I love coffee. It’s comforting and warm and I have definitely missed it. The house I’m staying in has an individual coffee maker, which makes a 4oz. ‘cup’ of coffee at a time. However, they also only stock monster sugar cubes. So I’m even more enjoying my half cup of coffee with extra sugar. Lecker!

I did some work stuff, even finished a story (bam!). And stayed home until lunch time. At around 12:30, I walked downtown to the markets. It turns out that, especially right now with my digestive system being a little finicky, the Christmas markets are the perfect food solution. I can eat one small thing, then wander for half an hour, then eat something else, and so on… unlike sitting in a restaurant and trying to get through a whole entree or – heaven forbid – 3 courses. So where shall we start?  

It’s a balmy 43 degrees (F) out today, which is the nicest weather we’ve had all week. But the skys are still pretty gray, and it might rain at any time. But the gray skies mean that all of the lights are on for all of the booths and rides, so the atmosphere is quite a bit more festive than last week. I started at the Place d’Armes, where I knew I wanted to start with a gromperekichelchen. This was a nice fried potato pancake with crunchy edges and a soft center, served with a little side of applesauce. This was a fun lunch appetizer. They’re good, not very salty, but well seasoned with herbs. 

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I walked around and looked at the different booths. There are so many candy and sweets booths. “Hawaiian Fruits” dipped in chocolate. This place had skewers of fruit, dipped in chocolate. There were, of course, pineapples and bananas, but also grapes (eww?), strawberries, walnuts, pears, coconuts, etc. There are candy makers, always roasting almonds, with that smell of the candid almonds drawing everyone in. Here they have all sorts of  gummies and candies, as well as nougats and hand-made hard candies. And, of course, rows and rows of Lebkuchen, frosted gingerbread hearts. There’s even a stand making Hungarian Kurtos, which are the Hungarian version of chimney cakes or Trdelnik. They have a few different flavors, each made by sprinkling a topping over a hot, freshly made kurtos. 

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There are also lots of gourmet food options. There’s a stand with truffle cheese and truffle oils, honeys, pastes. There are several booths of just cheese, with the cheesemongers offering samples to passersby. And there are the accompanying charcuterie stands, with their various preserved sausages and meats with white powdery coating on the outside. 

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After walking around, I decide to have lunch, so I order a wurst sandwich. I have not had any meat-based protein since last Friday, so I’m both excited and hesitant to introduce this new food to my digestive system. I ate a little more than half before deciding that was enough. The sausage was delicious, a white, delicate herby sausage, not one of the red super salty ones.

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The food booths are also amazing. There’s a booth that’s very popular that makes smoked salmon. There are huge slabs of fish held delicately leaning over the fire. You can order a whole smoked fish to take home or a sandwich to eat at the market. Like… it looks like a lobster roll kind of sandwich? I dunno. I don’t eat fishies, but it looks super cool. There is, of course, the fondue/raclette booth, where all of their signs are cows <3. And a booth of tartiflette. This is delicious looking, but I haven’t tried it yet. It’s like a paella, sort of… I mean, it’s generally cooked in the huge flat pans like paella, but has none of the same ingredients. Tartiflette is variations of sliced potatoes, bacon, onions, and cheese. The photo below shows a completely ready-to-serve pot with a very creamy looking potato concoction, next to a pan that was just started, with giant hunks of cheese warming up and getting ready to melt. There’s a different raclette stand with an industrial raclette melter. It has spaces to melt 4 half-wheels of cheese at a time. Just rotate and scrape off the cheese, then move to the next wheel. Yum. 

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I decided to have a crepe with caramel for dessert while walking around. It was delicious and messy. 🙂 And I walked over to the hunnegdrëpp stand and actually had an exchange with the guy in Luxembourgish. He had 3 flavors of hunnegdrëpp, one with ‘Propolis‘ in it. So I asked what that is. He explained it to me….. something about bees.  And he let me try some. So I bought a little bottle. It’s like a spicy form of hunnegdrëpp, which he says is good for sore throat. 

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There are only a few booths with local handmade goods, though there is supposed to be another market opening tomorrow with local and handmade as the focus. I am not including photos of the “Yankee Candle” booth or any number of patchouli-scented clothing booths, or the hats-and-scarves booths. There is a booth that has a bunch of the pyramid candle holder things. On further inspection, they seem to always depict the Nativity on the bottom, with all of the different people moving in a circle around the baby Jesus. And the second level is the three wise men and the shepherds, almost always with a bunch of little hand-carved sheep, which are adorable and always my favorite part because they look like Pooka.  I guess if there are 4 layers, the wise men and shepherds each get their own level. And then the top layer is always the angels with their heralding trumpets. 

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And finally, last but not least, there are about a million ways to have some glühwein.  I still haven’t convinced myself to try the Feuerzangenbowle, but maybe next week I’ll feel up to it. 

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After all that exploring, I spent a couple of hours in my room warming back up so I can go back out for dinner. I thought it would be fun to go back to the markets and get some night time shots. So I walked back to the markets and it was absolutely as magical at night as you’d expect. The Pyramid is lit up. The Ferris wheel is glowing. There are tons of people there now! All the kids are out of school for the day and this place is hopping. There’s live music, a Hungarian violinist and band. The air smells like hot gluhwein. 

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I walked from the Pyramid to the main square.  All those restaurants that I couldn’t get into last week after class are now completely empty as hundreds of people are trying all kinds of interesting foods in the square. I walk through the square once, but I know what I am after. I’ve been waiting almost 2 weeks to try the foie gras spaetzle. And tonight is the night. I go and place my order and they hand me a ticket. I see the guy start to make it. He has a pan that he’s cooking bacon in for the spaetzle. He scoops all the bacon to the other side, leaving just some bacon fat behind. Then he pulls out a container of foie gras pieces to cook in the bacon grease. He sees me eagerly watching and taking photos of him cooking, so he winks and tosses a third piece on the pan. 

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Once the foie gras is cooked, about 4 minutes, he makes a plate of the already-prepared spaetzle with bacon and then gently places the 3 slices of liver on top and hands me the plate. Yay!  I stand at a nearby table and devour my delicious dinner. This is a great way to celebrate completion of 3 weeks of class. I hang out and eat and watch as he makes another batch of spaetzle, adding garlic and spices to the bacon, then tossing in a big pot of noodles. Those giant pans look like they take a lot of work to get everything mixed together. After eating a rather indulgent meal, I headed home for the night. 

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