German delights in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Chances are that unless you are an academic snob, you’ve never heard of a small Midwestern town called Ann Arbor, Michigan. Neither did Leibspeise, but thanks to Diane from the University of Michigan we learned that it has a surprisingly vivid German food culture:

The University of Michigan is pretty well known for Medicine, Engineering and Business, so there’s lots of clever expats here who like to be able to buy their own foods. Besides that, the automotive industry – albeit in shambles – , still has a few wealthy people left who all live here. Hence a good density of specialty shops.

Most importantly: Zingerman’s.  They are not German, but used to have a German master baker named Rene who tought them to make Vollkornbrot, rye bread, “pain de montagne” that despite its French name and origin is what our US Leibspeise blogger would call a delightful “Graubrot” in German.  Zingerman is famous, their sandwiches have been on Oprah…  Ann Arbor also has a decent German restaurant: Metzgers.

About an hour from Ann Arbor, there’s the very scary and touristy town of Frankenmuth, but I will admit that the food I had there was pretty good.  Same goes for the Dakota Inn where I go for Oktoberfest every year and of course German Park. Lots of local Microbreweries brew some decent Greman beer. So, Leispeise hopes that everyone will now remember Ann Arbor, Michigan for its great German food.

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