Today on Food on Fridays we look at a relatively recent addition to the Tübingen food scene: a daily dose of house made quiche. Not exactly what you’d expect to find in Germany, eh?

OK, well, I should clarify that by  “daily dose” I mean that only in the sense that a little shop  opened up a few months ago a few blocks from our apartment, and the owner makes a daily selection of different kinds of small quiche tarts. We now go once a week to bring home a couple of tarts to try. The small size of the tarts makes each one suitable only for one person, but that allows us to sample a variety: perhaps we’ll choose Quiche Lorraine, perhaps Provencal, perhaps Gorgonzola or Camembert with pear, perhaps mushroom, perhaps lamb  … well, you get the idea, there have been a lot of different ones to try over the weeks.

One week there was an interesting choice: regular Quiche Lorraine and a “Quiche Lorraine” style but made with quark, that cream-cheese/yoghurt like substance that is so popular here. So of course we had to get one of each to taste-test the difference:

Dueling Quiche Lorraine: Top regular, bottom with Quark

As it turned out — and maybe not too surprisingly —  the one made with quark was much creamier than the regular one. Although, as you may be able to able to spot in the photo, the regular one had more bits of ham than the quark one, and that made the regular one ultimately more satisfying. We gave that feedback to the owner of the shop the next time we went in, but it occurs to me that perhaps a smaller amount of ham was by design in the quark one, since the substitution of quark makes the quiche much “heart healthier” than it normally is.

Anyway, it’s become a nice once-a-week tradition for us to go sample the quiche tarts at this little store. Who would have thought that one of the foods we’ll miss once we leave Germany would turn out to be a French specialty.