The Pfalz’s Unlikely Catch: A Fish Soup Story

There is no fish soup in the Pfalz. Sad, but true. Like most of Germany’s winegrowing regions, the Pfalz is simply too far removed from the sea for fish to feature prominently in its traditional cuisine. By extension, Pfalz fish soup is practically a culinary contradiction. A delicious deception. A seafood swindle.  

A Pfalz cookbook is a celebration of rustic comfort: Leberknödel (liver dumplings), Kartoffelsuppe mit Speck (potato soup with bacon, often in unlikely combination with plum cake), and, of course, Saumagen (stuffed pig’s stomach). Arguably the region’s culinary signature dish, this is a hearty, sausage-y mix of pork, potato, chestnuts, and spices including marjoram and nutmeg, stuffed into a cleaned sow’s stomach and served with sauerkraut and roasted potatoes.

And were the Pfälzer to have a fish soup of their own, one might surmise its secret would lay in channeling the spirit of Saumagen.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The idea of “falsifying,” or better yet Pfalz-ifiying, fish soup for the landlocked region came to me and winegrower Hans-Christoph (“Hansi”) Stolleis during the 2022 farm festival at Weingut Stolleis in Gimmeldingen – an event that in hindsight, served as the inaugural Pfälzer Fischsuppe festival.