Today on Food on Fridays we’re going to visit the Vesperkirche-Tübingen.

Sponsored by the Evangelische churches (the main Protestant denomination) in the province of Baden-Württemberg, the Vesperkirche here in Tübingen runs for 4 weeks, from January 26-Februrary 22, 2014. Held at the Martinskirche (the St. Martin’s Church), the Vesperkirche offers a mix of services for people in need, including a clothing shop, medical services, massages, haircuts, etc. The daily highlight is the hot meal, prepared fresh with a menu that changes daily. More than a soup kitchen, the lunch is set up in the main sanctuary of the church and looks like a restaurant: there’s a menu board with the daily specials (one with meat, one vegetarian), wait staff to seat you and serve you, a full hot entree, homemade cakes, fruit, juice, and coffee.

Vesperkirche-Tübingen (photo from their website)

All the services at the Vesperkirche are free.  If you can afford to give a donation, you  place it in one of the church-shaped piggy-banks that decorate the lunch tables.

The Vesperkirche is a concept that first began in Baden-Württemberg 19 years ago in Stuttgart. The term Vesperkirche is a bit of a wordplay. Kirche means  “church”, and Vespers is a type of church service. However,  in the Schwabian dialect that is spoken here, Vesper is also the word for “snack”.

Now, every Tuesday I meet a friend during her lunch-hour and we have a tandem language session in German and English. This week she suggested that we go to the Vesperkirche for our lunch.

The lunch on offer that day was baked chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and green peas (a vegetarian meal was also available). It was quite tasty, even if the food style was more British than German that day. 😉 There was water and apple juice set on the table to serve yourself, but the order for the entrée was taken by a volunteer who then served up the plate with a flourish. After we finished, we were invited to go up to the cake counter, where an impressive selection of homemade cakes were displayed. Apparently there’s quite an army of volunteer bakers who deliver fresh baked good each day. You ordered your choice like you would at any bakery or cafe, carrying your plate and coffee or tea back to your table to round out the meal. I noticed that there was no limit on how much food you were allowed to get, and there was also the offer of boxing up things to take away as well.

Our waiter turned out to be a personable politician who is the equivalent (in North American terms) of the local congressman who serves in the national assembly. Others waiting tables included retired teachers and businesspeople, as well as people from the church. According to the website, the Vesperkirche requires 40 volunteers to staff it each day.

As it says on the Vesperkirche website, the goal is to bring a mix of people together in a “meeting place” to be able to relax and find services that they need, enjoying a pleasant meal surrounded by a convivial atmosphere. On Tuesday we noted that there  was quite a mix of ages in the room, from little kids to retirees, and every age in-between. Everyone was quite friendly and welcoming, including the two 40-something guys sitting next to me at the table. When my technique of gingerly-jabbing my chicken leg with a table knife wasn’t efficiently getting all the meat off the bone, one of my table-mates encouraged me just to pick the bone up and eat it with my fingers. Later, his friend came back from the clothing shop set up in the basement, and all then we admired his newly acquired winter jacket. We then compared notes on the cake selections. Unfortunately, my friend and I didn’t have much time to linger, since she had to get back to work, but we greatly enjoyed our lunch experience there.

So, an unexpected visit to a church provided a great way to support a good cause, as well as a little break from Berliners for the Food on Friday series. Thanks, C, for the suggestion! 🙂

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BTW, the Martinskirche itself was an interesting place, as it is a relatively new building, having been built on the edge of town the mid-1950s.

Martinskirche, Tübingen (photo from their website)

The sanctuary space is described on their website as being octagonal. Inside, it seemed like the wall was divided into more than 8 parts, but perhaps that was an illusion created by some of the walls being bigger than others.

Note: The photos here are from the websites for Vesperkirche-Tuebingen and Martinskirche, not ones I took myself. You can also see more photos from inside the Vesperkirche-Tuebingen on their website.

Also, here’s a link to a short TV news report about last year’s Versperkirche–Tübingen that will give you a feel for the room and the mix of people who attended. The video clip is in German, but I think you can still get the general sense of it even if you can’t follow the narration completely.