We are told over and over not to eat too much on Thanksgiving but what do we usually do? Eat too much on Thanksgiving! To help with the aftermath of the laden table, here are tips direct from Germany to make you feel better.

Bitters are mostly used in cocktails in the US, but Germans have traditionally drunk them as a digestive aid (a "Digestif") after a hearty meal. Common ones there are Underberg, Fernet Branca or Jägermeister and are made following secret recipes of herbs in alcohol. Germans see these more as medicine than alcohol, indeed I could buy them at the university's cafeteria checkout.

Doppelkorn and Korn, which are fermented grain liquors, are often drunk as well to soothe the stomach. The thought is that a light layer of alcohol atop the stomach contents will stop - ahem- any repercussions, shall we say? It works pretty well, too, as long as you stop at one.

You might want to try "Kümmel", a sweet liqueur flavored with caraway, cumin and fennel, herbs thought to help digestion. Aquavit uses the same herbs and also thought to be good for you.

For tea-totalers, you might buy some whole fennel (Natural Grocers or Whole Foods) and brew some fennel tea or just chew on a few seeds. It's very likely that the essential oils in the seeds will make your tummy feel better.

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When I first started shopping at Whole Foods grocery their bakery consisted mostly of white flour artisan bread like you find in France and Italy. Yummy, but not dense, dark or German by any stretch of the imagination. Now, though, they are selling several different kinds of freshly baked, German-style whole grain breads. Both regular yeast and sourdough. At the Whole Foods I was in, a loaf cost $3.99. It was covered with sunflower seeds, made with sourdough and was just delicious. I never expected such a large change in bread from a supermarket.

So if you live near a Whole Foods, you might put their bakery on your shopping list and try a loaf. Or take a look at these recipes to make your own dense, German bread.

_{Photo: Homemade sourdough bread © J.McGavin}

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My friend, Barbara, writes about Eastern European food here at About.com. Normally I would say that the cuisine is close to German food, but there are a couple of variations. I encountered one this weekend as a matter of fact. I went out to the "Bohemian Brewery" in Midvale, Utah (south Salt Lake area) and had their Old World Pork Roast with sauerkraut and homemade bread dumplings. Little did I know that the bread dumplings they were talking about were what looked like large pieces of steamed white bread. Barbara makes these to serve with Chicken Paprikash and makes sure there's plenty of gravy to go over them.

Now, German bread dumplings are quite different. Dense, chewy and round, they taste more like Thanksgiving stuffing and, while they like gravy, don't mush up in it. You don't remove the bread crusts, which gives them more color, too. The Czech dumplings were OK, though unexpected, but I still prefer the German ones for now. Maybe if Barbara made me dinner...

_{Photo of Czech dumplings Flickr user Daniel Spils, photo of German bread dumplings © J.McGavin}

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German food sure has a lot of recipes for dumplings. They wind up in the soup, to soak up gravy or to use up leftovers. Butternocken are a common add-in for soups, and a nice change from noodles or rice. Potato dumplings come in several forms. There's Kartoffelklöße (round) and Schupfnudeln (long), to name just two. Both recipes call for cooked potatoes.

On the bread/flour side of dumplings, there's Spätzle, a cross between a noodle and a tiny dumpling. And we don't want to forget the Semmelknödel, a type of bread pudding that is simmered in hot water, instead of steamed or baked.

Whatever you decide to make, you will find out that these are all simple recipes with inexpensive ingredients. They make home cooked meals special. Guten Appetit!

_{Photo © J.McGavin}

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