Food / Essen

Food is the theme of this blog entry, so to start with here's a regional joke to wet your appetite...

Q: When God finished making the Ruhrgebiet what did he say?

A: Essen ist fertig!

The relevance of this little linguistic joke is that the word Essen is the name of the city in the Ruhrgebiet in which we live BUT it also means 'to eat'. So when God said "Essen ist fertig" he meant either, Essen is complete or dinner is ready ;)

Generally we're of the belief that if the Germans ate like the Italians it would be an even nicer place to live... German food is very very heavy. Cream and pork are their favourite ingredients. They put cream in soups, salads, cakes, coffees, meat dishes, fish dishes and even Flammkuchen (which is a local pizza)!! Cream is very difficult to avoid. Anything green is usually considered decoration or is completely cooked to death.

So our favourite food in Germany comes from the local bakery. They have a selection of at least 20 different breadrolls, often packed with seeds, nuts, onion, grated carrot and they are all moist and chewy. The Germans consume them with a cream spread, sliced meat and maybe a slice of tomato (for decoration). Stephanie is addicted to the Bretzels, Mia to the Laugenstangers, Hubi to the Kraftballigbroetchen, and I like the simple rye breads or Seelen (green olive bread). Of course, the bakeries also offer an impressive range of sweet temptations like Pflaumkuchen (plum cake - usually covered in wasps); Quarkbaellen (deep fried sugary balls made from cottage cheese); Schokolademauschen (choc chip buns); Mohnkuchen (poppyseed cake) etc etc

Nordrhein-Westfalen (our state) also has a few regional specialities - most of which we've not been game to order, like Gruenkolessen und Pinkelwurst (green cabbage and herbs served with fried pork sausages, fatty pork ribs and pureed potato); Lungenwurst (made from pork and lamb lungs!); Eintopf (lentil and lamb stew) and a traditional regional dessert is Rote Gruetze (stewed berries with vanilla cream sauce).

On our recent trip to Frankfurt we sampled some of their regional cuisine:

Handkaes mit Musik (low fat fists of sour cheese swimming in diced pickled onion, caraway seeds and vinegar); Apfelwein (a slightly sour, beer-like apple wine); Frankfurter Gruener Sosse (Goethe's mother apparently invented a green herb sauce ... made with cream, which was poured over potatoes); Frankfurter Rindswurst (long skinny sausages served with potato salad or bread and mustard).

I think the most famous dish in Germany just celebrated it's 100th birthday. It's called Currywurst and is a sliced sausage served in a spicy, rather gluggy, tomato sauce, served with potato chips often drowned in 'beides' (ketchup and mayonnaise)!!

All we can say - is we're looking for to Barcelona and some Tapas!!