(Update: Late in 2016, German John’s closed permanently)
A few weeks ago, we found ourselves driving through Hillsborough and Peterborouh in southern NH. Looking for a snack, we had recalled that several years earlier we had passed some sort of German bakery, but couldn’t recall details. This time, armed with GPS and 3G wireless, we found the place: German John’s Bakery in Hillsborough.
A modest storefront in a building shared with an ice cream parlor (which appears to be run by the same folks), it’s a cozy little bakery with a several racks of baked goods, a chalkboard listing available sausages, some shelves of German groceries, and a few tables. We opted for a few classic soft pretzels, and went outside to the tables out front.
These were rather good pretzels, with a nice, firm exterior crust with that nice, dark, finish you only get from lye. The interior was chewy but not heavy, with the thinner bits of the pretzel having a nice crunch. I don’t get a lot of good soft pretzels these days, most resemble the sort of thing you get in a mall food court, but these actually reminded me of my many fine evenings in the biergarten in Munich, eating fine bretzen and radish with a nice dunkel. At least I kmow where to find a good pretzel if I’m in the area.
We also got a loaf of hefezopf, a nice, mildly sweet German breakfadt bread with walnuts and raisins, as well as scoring a fairly rare item from the grocery shelves, a zuckerhut. Now I can again fire up the fueurzangenbowle…
