Culture of Alsace

Picturesque, the Alsace knows a tradition as alive as authentic. Its houses with Half-timbering and the sloping roofs confer on the cities and villages a side enchanter.

Its Language, the Alsatian , transmitted from generation to generation and still very present today, attests singularity of the area and will of its inhabitants to perennialize its habits.

The Alsace is a ground of festival. To the national festivities many local demonstrations, celebrated with enthusiasm are added. The Alsatian one likes to meet in family in a merry environment.

In the villages, the messti , which takes place once per annum, is the family festival par excellence. After the mass then a good meal, small and large is found with the fair-village fair. Products of the village or nearby hamlet are reported on the craftsmen. The rejoicings end in a ball. The Folklore, alive, appears at the time of these local festivities. Costumes, musics and dances traditional are of setting.

Gastronomy

The Alsace is very known for its Vin, its Bière and its Choucroute. But of other specialities the flat small goods of formerly recall. These mets are to be tasted in the winstubs, restaurants typically Alsatian, with the intimate framework and cordial environment.

The gastronomical reputation of the area is largely founded. Restaurants with dimensions propose mets very refined like the Foie gras. One eats there well, in quality as in quantity. The area is rich in products of the soil. The production relates to primarily drinks: the Beer and the Wine.

Flourishing, the Alsatian Brasserie uses the Houblon and the Orge of the plain of Low-Alsace. Its production corresponds to more half of the French sales .

The Vignoble is present in most of the area. A route was named Wine trail of Alsace. The Vineyard of Alsace, cultivated on the under-Vosgean hills, profits from a microclimate hot and shone upon at the origin of the large variety of Cépage S. the wines of Alsace can be consumed throughout a meal.

the the Sylvaner, lightest, can be been useful with the Charcuterie, out-of works or the Poisson.
the Riesling or the pinot S is tasted with the Choucroute, the Volaille or the roast.
Lastly, the velvety flavor and the fruity savor of the Gewürztraminer or the Muscat accompany with wonder the Alsatian Pâtisserie .

Been useful well by the products of its ground, the Alsatian kitchen is original and of a great savor, since made with pure the grease of Oie or Porc. The Ham and the Beef sausage are traditional Alsatian pork-butchery.

The pork-butcheries are often employed in Potée. Indeed, in this beef stew, the Bœuf is replaced by salted Lard and sausages. A Cabbage is added to other vegetables. The Choucroute is the Alsatian dish par excellence, most famous being that cooked with the Vin of Alsace.

The other impossible to circumvent ones are the Baeckeoffe, containing Porc, Mouton, Bœuf and potatoes, and the Tarte flambe with soft white cheese, sometimes added with cream, onions and plugs. In addition to this family kitchen, Alsace produces many refined mets, like the Foie gras, very famous, or the Sandre, succulent Poisson.

With regard to pastry making, the Alsace account an astonishing number of tarts, the Kugelhopf being the traditional cake. December and January, festive months thus greedy, are rich in specialities pâtissières.

The day of the Saint Nicolas's Day, the December 6th, a multitude of small brioche catches to the eyes of grapes, called Maennele , invades the windows of the area. As of this date, the good pâtissières, cut off in their kitchen, make about fifteen variety of small cakes called Bredele , tasted during the festivals of Christmas.

The breakfast of the new year is celebrated with the Stolle , bread roll in raised paste, and the giant bretzel. The festivities finish with wafer of the Kings, more known.

The winstub, literally part with wine , restores best Alsatian art of living . In the beginning, it is about a room open to the public allowing the owners, the producers, to run out the surplus of their wine production. The wine is served in jug all the day, accompanied by small simple dishes.

Today, the winstub is the typically Alsatian restaurant, by its spirit soil and bar. One finds there savors of formerly, the small dishes such as potato wafers and the quenelles of liver or the Baeckeoffe and the Choucroute, more rich person. One eats there with the neck and neck on tables out of wooden covered with tablecloths with red squares. The winstub is a place where one still takes time to live.

The meals are often delayed around a Stammtisch : around a table, accustomed come to remake the world. Formerly, some winstubs were the place of predilection of the artists. They there discussed, recited poems or played of the guitar.

The Brasserie S are especially prosperous as from the 18th century. At the time, in fact the same factories are installed in the city Strasbourg eoise. Additional buildings allow tasting it. Initially lugubrious and attended by " people; avertis" , the breweries open with a larger audience. They adopt the style of the Bavarian breweries and accommodate orchestras. Each establishment has its customers, which vary according to the social category and the political tendency.

Nowadays, few large breweries remain with Strasbourg, yielding the place to the bierstubs, with the more intimate framework.

In short, the true nature of the Alsatian gastronomy is to be greedy!

Language

The Alsacien is always largely used and remains a true common language, even if its use is less and less broad, especially downtown. This original speech is neither of the German , nor of the French, but well of the German superior. It is resulting more precisely from the group Alémanique spoken in central Alsace, as in the Pays of close Bade and the German Suisse bordering.

The linguistic border which separates it from the French corresponds neither to the Route of the Peaks of the the Vosges, nor with departmental limits . Thus certain valleys of the Alsatian slope of the Vosges have since centuries a Romance culture, supported by a language today in the process of disappearance: the Welche.

During political alternations which attached the Alsace to the France or the Germany, the French and the German have, beside this traditional speech, in turn, profited from a mode of favor being often taught and being forced so as to eliminate Alsatian the, compare one to the language of the overcome country.

The Alsacien comes from the Alamans, people Germanic having invaded the area into 406 during the cruel invasions in the Romain Empire.

Traditional architecture

August 1st

The Half-timbered house, consisted of a timber structure dismountable (comparing thus traditionally this type of building to a personal property) and fillings in cob, is one of the symbols of Alsace. If the traditional mode of cover is the tile (known as Biberschwánz scales some, that is to say " tail of castor" , because of its form), it was often replaced by employment, less expensive and more practical, of the industrial tile invented at the 19th century by Gillardoni with Altkirch.

Traditional costume

August 1st

The male costume

It is the traditional costume of the area of Strasbourg with its harmonies of colors which give an unquestionable glare to our services, this costume is that of festival. This costume is particularly characteristic, it comprises approximately 70 buttons gilded, more or less according to the richness of that which carries it.

hat on broad black felt board
black pants furnished with 5 gilded buttons on the side external
black jacket furnished with gilded buttons
cross red waistcoat
white blouse with one gallon black tied with the neck

The female costume

This one is much more complex, a cap made up of a black bonnet and a fabric band 3,60 meters length which one crosses to obtain a node, it is bent on the bonnet. It forms sides falling down to the back of the head.

white shirt maker in broderie anglaise
skirt with a black corselet and drill plate
black apron embroidered by a member of the group
shawl black
panty and underskirt

In our group, the colors of the dresses, red or green, are present for the esthetics of the figures of our dances. A last precision, on the cap, the tricolor rosette is not affixed, our dances are purely folk.

Market of Christmas

The first traces of the markets of Christmas go back to XIVe century in Germany and Alsace, under the name “Gone of Saint Nicolas”. The first document reporting a market of Christmas is gone back to 1434 under the reign of Frederic II of Saxony, evoking a “Striezelmarkt” which took place in Dresden Monday previous Christmas. Later, the Reform perpetuated the tradition by renaming it “ChristKindlMarkt” (gone of the Child Christ) to fight against the worship of the saints. The market of Christmas of Strasbourg goes back to 1570, that of Nuremberg of 1628.

At the XIXe century, ChristKindelsmarkt was held in Frohnhof (place with the drudgeries) between the Cathédrale Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, the Palais of Rohan of Strasbourg and the museum of Work Notre-Dame (current place of the castle) and took place place 8 days before Christmas and until the midnight mass.

An important revival, considered as commercial, took place in the middle of the years 1990. Many cities in Europe founded their own market of Christmas with country cottages and sometimes of attractions.

Catalog of films

the Alsatian ones or Both Mathilde , film carried out by Michel Favart, 1996: telefilm which tells in a fictitious way the adventures of several Alsatian families confronted with the change of nationality caused by the Franco-German Guerre of 1870, the First World War and the Second world war

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