Rinderbraten, also known as Marinierter Rinderbraten, is a German dish

German cuisine

German cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of Germany. It has evolved as a national cuisine through centuries of social and political change with variations from region to region. The southern regions of Germany, including Bavaria and neighbouring Swabia, share many dishes....

 whose name means "spiced beefroast" . It is made from a large round of beef

Round steak

A round steak is a steak from the round primal cut of beef. Specifically, a round steak is the eye round, bottom round, and top round still connected, with or without the "round" bone , and may include the knuckle , depending on how the round is separated from the loin. This is a lean cut and it...

, stuffed with pork fat that has been rolled in a combination of saltpeter

Sodium nitrate

Sodium nitrate is the chemical compound with the formula NaNO3. This salt, also known as Chile saltpeter or Peru saltpeter to distinguish it from ordinary saltpeter, potassium nitrate, is a white solid which is very soluble in water...

, salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

, red pepper

Capsicum

Capsicum is a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Its species are native to the Americas where they have been cultivated for thousands of years, but they are now also cultivated worldwide, used as spices, vegetables, and medicines - and have become are a key element in...

, brown sugar

Brown sugar

Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white...

, allspice

Allspice

Allspice, also called Jamaica pepper, pepper, myrtle pepper, pimenta, or newspice, is a spice that is the dried unripe fruit of Pimenta dioica , a mid-canopy tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, now cultivated in many warm parts of the world...

, and cloves. The round is then submerged in brine

Brine

Brine is water, saturated or nearly saturated with salt .Brine is used to preserve vegetables, fruit, fish, and meat, in a process known as brining . Brine is also commonly used to age Halloumi and Feta cheeses, or for pickling foodstuffs, as a means of preserving them...

 for up to six weeks, then boiled, and then simmered, with the blackened outer layer of beef and fat removed and cinnamon sprinkled over it before serving.

Variations

A modified Rinderbraten called Spice Round or Spiced Round was once a common centerpiece of holiday meals in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

.

After the Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

, Nashville was a hub of the meat-packing industry in the American south due to an influx of Swiss and German immigrants who founded several meat-packing companies along the Cumberland River

Cumberland River

The Cumberland River is a waterway in the Southern United States. It is long. It starts in Harlan County in far southeastern Kentucky between Pine and Cumberland mountains, flows through southern Kentucky, crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before...

, a major shipping route between the American north and south. One particular meat-packer was Mr. William Jacobs, who founded the Jacobs Packing Company in 1865.

Jacobs, originally from Wittenburg, Germany

Wittenburg

Wittenburg is a town in the district Ludwigslust-Parchim in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. Population 5570, area 46.25 km². Wittenburg should not be confused with the much bigger Wittenberg....

, only packed during the winter months due to local climate and the availability of meat from local stock beginning in September. Jacobs knew that Rinderbraten, a specialty of his native country, was prepared using a brine in order to preserve the meat through winter, so he began producing batches of it for the local populace as an easily stored convenience. In 1865, he was able to convince the posh Maxwell House Hotel

Maxwell House Hotel

The Maxwell House Hotel was a major hotel in downtown Nashville at which seven US Presidents and other prominent guests stayed. It was built by Colonel John Overton Jr. and named for his wife, Harriet Maxwell Overton. The architect was Isaiah Rogers....

 to add it to their winter menu, and from there it gained in popularity, attracting other meat-packing companies to emulate his success.

At one time, there were over 30 butchers and meat-packers in Nashville, and nearly all of them produced Spice Round. Each used a slightly different and closely guarded recipe.

Nashville's version of Rinderbraten was not stuffed with pork fat, rather, it was larded throughout the meat with special horns. In addition to the fat being blended with the traditional Rinderbraten spice, typically the same spices would be used in the brining solution and run through the meat using specially prepared larding needles, leading to a much more heavily spiced preparation than the German version. Because of this, most Nashville families omitted the sprinkling of cinnamon over the cooked meat.

It is still available in some grocery stores in the city during the holiday season.