qondio.com/pRA3

Germany, a Nation of Bread Eaters

By Nick Radovanovic

Visiting Germany? It's not as exotic as, say, Vietnam, to most English speakers, but it does have its own peculiarities. One of the stranger aspects is the German diet. To avoid culture shock, learn about German culinary habits before visiting the country. I've slapped together a quick guide.

Bread, Bread, Bread

As one can tell from the English language, which includes idioms such as "breadwinner," "Give Us Our Daily Bread," and "bread and butter business," bread used to be the staple intake in England and possibly the United States. However, most meals nowadays are consumed without bread, unless you count burger buns, pizza crust, and makaroni as bread.

In Germany, solidly Old Europe to this day, bread firmly comprises the base of the food pyramid in millions of homes.

Bread for Breakfast

While the English tuck into their tomatos, sausages, and egg for breakfast, and the Americans scoop their Froot Loops to start off the day, the Germans go around the corner to pick up bread from the local baker.

Or rather "little breads," called broetchen. These are round and fist-sized, and resemble a French baguette in the form of a ball - crunchy and golden on the outside, soft and white on the inside. These are consumed with jam, honey, or chocolate spread. In hotels this breakfast is referred to as the "continental breakfast," perhaps because it sounds more appetizing than "German breakfast."

Lunch

There is no bread in sight for lunch. At lunchtime the Germans pretend to be a normal nation, but do it badly. The success of celebrity chefs such as Wolfgang Puck notwithstanding, Germany isn't renowned for the giddying heights of her culinary attainments, and having lunch in Germany will tell you why. The Germans seem to have an aversion to cooking that tastes of anything, and German lunches, usually a thick slab of meat served with potatoes or noodles and a gravy, are bland and boring to the point of being inedible.

The trick to surviving lunch in Germany is to carry Tabasco around at all times, carefully concealed on your person in case other foreigners try to steal it. The problem is getting hold of it, as it seems to be banned. You'd better smuggle it in at the airport, hiding it in your underwear to prevent confiscation by the border guards.

Alternatively, the Germans luckily do have a minority of Turks, so if you see a Turk, corner him and don't let him go until he reveals the location of the nearest Turkish restaurant. Hopefully the Turk minority and their kebabs, corbas, and güveç will be around for a long time, though with Germany you never know. (Ouch, rim shot!)

Snacktime

It's snacktime. You've just spent three hard hours at the office catching up with your Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare messages. Naturally you reach for the Dorritos. Your counterpart in Germany, meanwhile, has spent the past three hours working on the engineering of solid-state transducers. Having had a breadless, bland lunch, he can't stand the bread-deprivation any longer and gets himself a schnittchen, basically a small slice of bread with a cold cut on top. Schnittchens are often enjoyed with beer. If no schnittchens are available, Germans may make do with a pretzel or two.

Evening Bread

Supper in German is literally called Abendbrot or "evening bread" and that should give you a taste of what's to come. Be shocked at the table setting: no plates in sight. Each diner is given a small wooden chopping board. Yes, those things that people in other nations use to cut their onions are placed in front of diners at dinner time. There are no spoons around either; instead, the diners are provided with knives.

You might think the meal is cooked at the table with each participant serving as sous chef, but actually, no cooking takes place at all. Whoever is in charge of preparing the meal does a lot of ferrying back and forth from the refrigerator, until the table is covered in cold cuts such as cheeses, hams, sausages, and a queer yoghurty substance called quark.

And, of course, bread, bread, and more bread. A visitor from a foreign country might not recognize some of the German bread varieties, especially the pumpernickel. It's dark brown and made of rye and some other mystical ingredients, which cause it to be the heaviest and densest food on the planet. I'd guess the chainsaw was invented by a German for the purposes of slicing his pumpernickel.

There are many other varieties; too many to recount here, as each locality in Germany has its own bread. All bread types have one thing in common, though - they will be less dense than pumpernickel, but still much harder and heavier than the average fluffy white loaf found in the U.S.

(When visiting the U.S., Germans will take one look at an ordinary loaf of white bread and say, "That's not a loaf," they then slam down a chunk of pumpernickel, squashing the hapless white bread into a thin wafer, and declare, "This is a loaf," sending the natives scurrying away in panic.)

Back to the German supper. The diners will proceed to make their own open-top sandwiches, with such delectables as liverwurst (liver spread), blutwurst (blood sausage), and the emperor of all sausages, a raw pork sausage called mettwurst. This magical stuff is possibly the strongest argument against vegetarianism there is, and I have heard of aficionados who drive 2,000 km throughout the night just to get their hands on some authentic German mett.

Since mettwurst is made of raw pork, it could well end up being illegal one day under EU regulations, in which case you will no doubt have mettwurst pushers hanging out at dark street corners while addicts, sallow-faced and sweating profusely, come from far and wide clutching fistfuls of euros.

Analysis

The fact that no time is spent cooking the evening meal could be one reason why the German economy is so strong even though Germans are always on vacation. While the rest of the world is busy scaling fish, peeling garlic, and dicing carrots, the Germans are reading up on the latest news in solid-state transducing. One hour of saved time a day adds up to a whopping 2 weeks per year, which is about the same amount of time Germans spend vacationing while you're stuck in the office (Germans get about five weeks of vacation time per year).

Remember, this is a quick and dirty guide, and doesn't cover all aspects of German cuisine. They also eat knaeckebrot, a thin, dry crispy bread originally from Scandinavia. There, I've covered everything now.

Mahlzeit! (Bon Appetit in German, or literally "mealtime!")

Mettwurst. Beware! Highly addictive. Known to ruin families (if the family has a vegetarian member).

Don't believe this article? Here's proof, taken from a German website. Booya!

Food is one of the great parts about traveling to a different area. I like to come up with at least one new "Favorite food" each time I go to a new place. I may have to work a little harder at that goal if I ever make it to Germany.

adac Mar 8, 2011 08:33

appreciated

Nick, so you were the one that caused this salivation for me with this intel? I am heading to Germany to eat pumperknickel and all the other exotic-sounding breads you talked about when I have gotten a visa and enough money to undertake the trip with my family. Why will I alone eat all the bread?

I was in Dakar in December but could not explore the town due to language challenges. However, providence made me eat their food I longed for on the eve of my departure from the town. I do not know the name but it consists of French bread cut open along its length and stuffed with fries, meats, *&^% and "£$%(the ingredients and spices I do not know). I had a wonderful dinner with it.

Nick, if you must write a similar intel again, you must issue a disclaimer along this line; "I should not be held responsible for what this intel does to your appetite or what you do after reading it".

Thank you for your generous comment, my kind friend. I have never been to Dakar but am now intrigued. The culinary heritage of colonial France combined with local inventiveness must have given rise to a mysterious, delicious hybrid. Visiting Senegal and discovering this mystery sandwich is now on the list of things I must do before I die (along with, of course, dropping by Nigeria).

Food, Food, Food... one of the most important and enjoyable aspects of our everyday life. I tried pumpernickel once... nearly died in fear of how dense it was.

snowhat Mar 8, 2011 14:05

appreciated

Thank you for sharing this wellresearched and well written 5***** intel, Nick. I was amazed at the details and would have never believed that dinner was cold meats and bread.
Your images really added to the points of your story.
Keep up the good work.
Best wishes.
Frederick

Thank you for making time to comment, much appreciated!

I'm sorry Nick, all you have managed to do for me is make me yearn for this food. I have been in Australia since I was 5 years old yet the flavours and culinary delights you described still linger on my palate and remind me of my heritage. I guess it is a matter of personal taste, is it really any different to having black pudding or smoked kippers for breakfast, chips or french fries with almost every meal, kangaroo on the barbie, or frog legs and escargot as an entree?

So you're a Teuton transplant in Ozland? I hope you're not going to be adding intel about roos on the barbie, please, I know I'd faint!

Fantastic intel! Thanks for reminding me what I miss about home, Nick. Or should that be Herr Nick?

Hi Herr Bansch! I was waiting rather anxiously for you to get back online; as you can imagine I was rather worried what a real German would have to say about this intel. You're just being too kind.

Thank you for commenting!

Delightful, delightful mouth watering travel guide. I must ask to be sent to Germany for my next contract assignment or maybe I'll just take a holiday off next week and savor this cuisine genre.

Nora Quiason Mar 12, 2011 23:35

appreciated

A friend of mine is a master bread-maker, and his specialty is awesome German style, thick, dark, heavy breads with a chewy/crunchy crust. I once asked him for guidance in making bread-wanted to try making some like his. He suggested I go do a volunteer apprenticeship at a very good local bakery. Apparently, a newbie like me asking him how to make German style bread was like a layman asking a surgeon for quick tips on performing a triple bypass.

There's definitely some serious skills there. I once tried to bake bread - not even German bread, just regular bread - at home and even my dog - who generally devours anything and everything - spat out the results and ran away whimpering.

I first met gluten on the field of battle. That was what my kitchen had become when, as a bride, I first attempted to make bread. I held what must have been the rather outstanding distinction of having produced leavened loaves that had decreased in size rather than increased. Thus they had compacted into something that Egyptian pharaohs would have welcomed had they been seeking rye bricks!

The copyright for this content entitled "Germany, a Nation of Bread Eaters" has been specified by the contributor as:

This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.