I think I would much prefer a translation which found some equivalent of the "House X" construction, and used that consistently to translate the "pancake", "pickled" etc. jokes - even if it ended up using something other than literally pancakes and fruit preserves.

So for instance "Haus der Wirtschaft" and "Haus des Lehrers" would yield non-slavish equivalents but a German reader might recognize both of them as being names of well-known (?) landmarks in German towns. It is this sense of familiarity that constitutes the essence of the joke, I'd argue. I'm not saying this is an ideal translation, just trying to come up with at least one example which strikes me as better than dropping the line or leaving the original English in.