Farms, dairies, cooperatives and affineurs in Rheinhessen that you can visit or buy from.
A guide to cheese farms in Rheinhessen.
Family sour-milk dairy in Groß-Gerau, across the Rhine from Mainz, founded in 1862. Makes Mainzer Handkäse, Bauernhandkäse and Harzer; it does not ship, so the cheese is bought at the dairy.
Cheeses: Mainzer Käse, Handkäse
Visiting: buy cheese at the dairy (no shipping)
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It is the traditional marinade of onions, vinegar and oil with pepper and salt. German Wikipedia says the name allegedly hints at the noises onions cause in digestion, and gives a second theory about vinegar and oil bottles once clinking when served.
Only the name Hessischer Handkäse, registered as a PGI by Commission Regulation (EU) 784/2010. Since September 2010 only sour-milk cheese made and packed in Hesse may carry it, though the quark need not come from Hesse. Handkäse as a type is not protected.
German Wikipedia says cider is the usual drink with Handkäse, but that in some areas such as Rheinhessen and the Palatinate a dry white wine is drunk with it as well.
Close, and the names overlap: in Mainz and the Rhine-Main area Mainzer Käse is simply called Handkäs. Both are small sour-milk cheeses of low-fat quark, but German Wikipedia notes that Handkäse can also be made as a white-mould cheese, which Mainzer Käse is not.
From Groß-Gerau in Hesse, across the Rhine from Mainz. German Wikipedia says it was created there in 1813 and sold at the Mainz market, and Käserei Horst's company history dates the area's cheese-making to the same year.
Often as Handkäs mit Musik, marinated in vinegar, wine, oil and onions, and offered with or without caraway.
In the basic recipe, two parts cream cheese and three parts cream quark, pepper, salt and sweet paprika, with onions served over or beside it. Many cooks add butter, egg yolk, Schmand or crème fraîche.
Salt or lye pretzels as a dip, or hearty bread as a spread, according to German Wikipedia; rheinhessen.de says dry bread or salted baked goods, especially lye pretzels.