Tradition.

We are Germans. We take cake seriously. Come to that, there's not much that we don't take seriously, but baked goods are among the most serious foodstuffs. Traditionally, we don't care much about our vegetables - cooked to slightly mushy perfection and drowned in white sauce - but Kuchen? Oh, the variety! With or without fruit topping, with butter cream, with Streusel, with chocolate, with cream cheese or Quark. I can think of half a dozen different possibilities of apple cakes or tarts right off the top of my head.

But it's a dying art and you don't find many independent specialised bakeries (Konditorei) and cafés any more where you can get coffee and a piece of cake for your Kaffeeklatsch. Our destination by the Rhine still had one of those.
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