Die kleine Raupe, Nimmersatt

 Ein Lied vom Rolf Zuckowsky über ein Buch von Eric Carle



--- Finde die Reflexiv- Verben und -Pronomen!

Nachts im Mondenschein lag auf einem Blatt
ein kleines Ei -- im Mondenschein.
Und als an einem schönen Sonntagmorgen
die Sonne aufging,  hell und warm,
da schlüpfte aus dem Ei - knack -
eine kleine hungrige Raupe.

Sie machte sich auf den Weg  (x3) um Futter zu suchen.
Am Montag fraß sie sich durch einen Apfel
  -- aber satt war sie noch immer nicht.
[Sie machte sich auf den Weg  (x3) -- um Futter zu suchen.] x

Am Dienstag fraß sie sich durch zwei Birnen,

Am Mittwoch fraß sie sich durch drei Pflaumen,

Am Donnerstag fraß sie sich durch vier Erdbeeren,

Am Freitag fraß sie fünf Apfelsinen,

Am Sonnabend fraß sie sich durch Schokoladenkuchen, eine Eiswaffel, eine Gurke,
eine Stück Käse, eine Wurst, einen Lolli,
ein Stück Früchtebrot, ein Würstchen, ein Törtchen,
ein Stück Melone ... ... an diesem Abend hat sie Bauchschmerzen!

Der nächste Tag war wieder ein Sonntag.
Die Raupe fraß sich durch ein grünes Blatt.
Da ging es ihr viel besser, der kleinen Raupe Nimmersatt.

Sie war nicht mehr hungrig, sie war richtig satt.
Und sie war nicht mehr klein, sie war groß und dick geworden.
Sie baute sich ein einges Haus,
das man Kokon nennt, und blieb darin mehr als zwei Wochen lang.
Dann knabberte sie sich ein Loch im Kokon,
schwängte sich nach draußen,
und war ein wunderschöner Schmetterling.

Heidelberg am Neckar, und die 3 Malzeiten

Das Fruehstueck
Das Mittagessen
Das Abendessen (das Abendbrot)

Must-Try German Foods

Guest Author:  Meredith, from her blog:  Kaffee und Kuchen

When you think of typical German foods, pretzels, sausage and beer probably come to mind. At least that’s what people teased me I would be eating and drinking day and night once I moved to Germany.

Of course the beer flows freely here and I’ve eaten pretzels as big as my head but there are so many German foods that I’ve now become acquainted with that I’d never heard of before moving to Germany. Here are some of my favourite discoveries:

Quark

Flip open a German cookbook and you’ll probably find at least one recipe calling for quark. Quark is a fresh dairy product found in German-speaking, northern European and Slavic countries. It’s a soft, white unaged cheese somewhat similar to cottage cheese or curd cheese. It comes in multiple milk fat percentages and can be found in every grocery store in Germany. Quark is commonly used in baking, especially in cakes like cheesecake. Given its ubiquity in Europe, I’m surprised that it hasn’t really caught on in North America. I saw it once in a Canadian grocery store but a small container cost almost ten dollars!

Schorle


Schorle is a popular German beverage made up of a mix of juice and sparkling mineral water. Apfelschorle (made with apple juice) is the most common kind and is found in vending machines and on beverage menus alongside soft drinks. When I first visited Germany, I drank my weight in Apfelschorle – we don’t have anything like it in Canada! If the schorle you’d like isn’t listed on a menu, you can order your own custom juice and sparkling water mix; red currant with sparkling water (Johannisbeerschorle) is my favourite. You can easily make your own schorle at home by mixing roughly equal parts of juice with sparkling water. It’s a healthier alternative to pop or lemonade since there’s less sugar in schorle and I find it to be even more refreshing.

Klöße

A German Knödel in the bread style. 

Klöße (also known as knödel) are boiled dumplings made from flour, bread or potatoes that are popular in central European cuisine. There are countless variations of klöße, but the kind that I’m most familiar with is the German Franconian style—boiled round potato dumplings. They are usually served as a side dish to meat and are topped with a delicious brown sauce. My favourite part of eating a kloß is cutting into the centre to find the small toasted bread cubes hiding within. Franconian klöße can be hard to come across in restaurants or homes outside of northern Bavaria, Germany so if you’re visiting Franconia, do try some! They’re slightly gummy, warm and tremendously comforting.

Spezi

Cola and orange-flavoured soft drinks are found on every drink menu, but have you ever had the two combined? Enter the delightful pre-mixed combo of the two called Spezi which is found all over Germany and Austria. Popular brand names include Schwip Schwap or Mezzo Mix. I don’t commonly drink Spezi but my German husband loves it! I supposed the citrus-cola hybrid is a bit of an acquired taste.

Rote Grütze

Rote Grütze, which translates to ‘red groats’, is a popular German and Danish sweet fruit dessert. The grütze is usually made with a mix of red summer berries such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries, red currants and black currants. The mixture is sweetened with sugar and thickened with a type of starch (usually potato starch). Grütze can be served hot or cold and is usually accompanied by a creamy vanilla sauce or custard to balance the acidic fruits. Rote Grütze is probably my all-time favourite German dessert as it showcases summer fruits at their peak. You can even find it premade in small containers in the pudding section of the grocery store, often with vanilla sauce in an adjoining container. Certainly a must-try dessert!

Bowle
At German outdoor festivals and parties, it’s common to find a large bowl of fruit-spiked wine punch called bowle. There are all kinds of bowle recipes but most consist of chilled white wine mixed with juice, lemonade or sparkling wine (called Sekt). Other spirits like rum can be added to the punch or red wine can be used instead of white wine. Fruits such as strawberries, pineapple or watermelon are often added to the punch bowl up to a day in advance to flavour the bowle. A glass of Erdbeerbowle (strawberry punch) really hits the spot on a warm summer evening. You should watch how many glasses you drink, though, because those small glasses can sure pack a punch!

Ueber Bienen: Warum sterben sie aus? Was koennen wir tun?

Aus der Schweiz von Markus Imhoof, kommt einen tollen Film,  MORE THAN HONEY, hier der Trailer:



Es hat 5 Jahre gedauert, diesen Film zu fertigen. Schwer war es, das Bienenleben zu filmen!

Wer moechte den ganzen Film sehen?


SRW Doku:  Warum sterben die Bienen aus?

15" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EzqSv50mgF8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>

How healthy is Germany's Kitchen?

Host Nelson Müller  does the research, with the help of plenty of friends, family members, and experts, using top entries from Germany, Asia, Italy, and Turkey in these 5 categories:

1.  Calories and health
2.  Preparation Speed
3.  Ecological balance, or footprint 
4.  Costs
5.  Taste

Deutsches Essen:  Top oder Flop?



Were you surprised by any of the results?

Let us know, too, if you were surprised about how much of this program you understood!

Auf der Suche nach dem gesundesten Essen der Welt

Searching the healthiest food in the world . . .
I think you'll understand plenty of this program -- and also find it interesting!  Text notes begin below. When I ran out of room on the screen, I continued with outline above the film.  Let me know what you got out of this film!

~ 14:  One can't go 20 steps in Tokyo without encountering another dining opportunity.
~ 15:15:  Ein Erdbeben -   Live!  The cooks experience an earthquake...Not too bad. And they get right back to work.
~ 16:30:  Subways stop at department stores.  The basements are the grocery stores.
~ 17:00   The percentage of a Japanese family's income spent on food.  (Germany spends just 8%)
~ 18:30   The Japanese eat by season for flavor.
~ 20:00   Leibspeise (Thunfisch) ist im Gefahr (in danger):  In Germany: 15 Kilo/per person Fish 
but in Japan, they average 66 Kilo Fisch per person!
~ 21:45   Sushi Theken (counters) aren't only for nutrition, but also for conversation and comfort.
~ 23:20   Diet of their cattle includes:  Fishpellets
~ 25:00   Nach dem Essen, die Massagen gegen Stress:  6 years long, the cattle get a message after eating.
~ 25:30  Cattle auction: perfection:  Japan sucht die Superkuh! Euro 20,000 Preis for 4th place cow
~ 27:00  Beef prices are outrageous! (New item on the menu, compared to soybeans)
~ 28:15  Soybean perfection for tofu.  In Germany, Soyaquark.  Daily eaten in Japan, even 3x/da.
~ 29:15  Yoba: Most Protein-rich bites in the world. 
              Bewegungsmangel macht man Krank
~ 30:15  Kyoto footage  (adelig = aristocratic)
~ 32:38  Das Motiv ist immer die Jahreszeit:  The season!
~ 33:30  Man isst hier nicht saat, man isst sich zufrieden.
~ 34:00  Ritual of flailing a fish without separating the pieces; a captivating and meaningful vision to Japanese.
~ 35:00  Grills..... Food and Beverage Trucks! 
~ 36:45  14 hour-long days, but it's all about conversation here, too.
~ 38:00  Man isst sich auch hier nicht satt; man isst sich geselig. 
~ 38:20  Considerably young (90-year-old) woman has died; most live to be 100 on Okinawa Island.
~ 39:15  Goya: eat this and live to 120!



Von Norden nach Süden bin ich gereist --  allein, mit meinen kleinen Kamera...
durch Sushi-Theken  . . .

Versessen auf Essen   ...   Obsessed with Food
Gesunde Kost aus Fernost ...   Healthy Victuals from the Far East
Auf Speisereise durch Japan  ...  On a Foodie Tour through Japan
mit Gert Anhalt

Früher Morgen  --- schon weg!   (Cool, nicht wahr?) 
Sie fangen nichts ein, sie rupfen was raus:  Kombu (= Seatang = seaweed).
Alles in Handarbeit.
6x am einen Tag kehren sie zurück in den Hafen.
Die ganze Familie muss mithelfen.   Bald schon kommt die Sonne raus.   Da glänzt ...
Daschi ist das Aroma Japans.
Buchweizen ist gesund.  Man kann so viel essen, wie man will.
61 Schüssel geschafft haben...Essen macht nicht nur satt, sondern auch glücklich.
Das Frühstück ist gesund. 
Die Entdeckung der Nato... verhindert Krebs!

~ 42:00  Was noch braucht man, um gesund zu bleiben?
  • Viel Bewegung an der frischen Luft ! 
  • Lachen mit Freunden.
  • Glück,  und
  • Zufriedenheit.

Sing mit: Die Früchte

Hier kommt die Banane, die ist gelb und krumm.
hier kommt die Orange, so saftig und so rund.
hier kommt -- die Traube, lila süß und klein.
hier die - Erdbeere, rot so muss sie sein.
hier kommt die Birne, oben schmal und unten breit.
hier kommt die Kirsche, -- die ist meist zu zweit
hier kommt die Zitrone, sauer macht lustig.
hier kommt die Melone, kernig und fruchtig. 

Super saftig...
Lass uns die fruchtigen Freunde noch einmal.....

Restaurant Gespraeche

3 Gespraeche



Das Bargeld reicht nicht, und die Kreditkarte ist zu Hause vergessen.



Der Kellner kommt wieder....  Was machen wir?
Dann koennen wir wenigstens ein Glas Wein dazu.
Haben Sie gewaehlt?
Welche Vorspeise moechten Sie?
Furchtbar teuer.  Eine Tomatensuppe fuer 8,40 Euro.


3.  Das Ehepaar ist mit der Bedienung ungluecklich


--Was ist mit dem Laser-Auge?

4.  Ein Krimi aus Koeln



Ueberraschung:  Wer lebt am Ende?

5.  Schulprojekt:  Im Restaurant



Und die Outtakes sind vielleicht am interessantesten. . .

Would YOU Eat That??

HERE IS THE ARTICLE.  DO YOU BELIEVE WHAT THEY CALL THESE THINGS?

Can you eat that?

You can argue about just how tasty German cuisine is. But these dishes have such quirky names, you just have to sink your teeth into them. Here's a look at our favorite 10 unusually named dishes. Enjoy!

• 
  Kalter Hund (Cold Dog)

  Dogs don't usually land on plates in Germany - except for dessert. At least figuratively speaking. Known as Kalter Hund, or Cold Dog, this simple no-bake dessert is made by layering butter cookies and chocolate frosting. When it cools in the fridge, the surface is said to "sweat" like a dog's nose. But the form also resembles a mine trolley, which, in old miners' speak, was also called a dog.
  
  
  There are so many more chapters here.  Check out the article!
  

Ein bekanntes Märchen -- Der Igel und der Hase

Vorgelesen von Axel Prahl



There are significant differences between the US version of fairy tales and the "original" German version.  For instance, which differences do you notice between this story and our "version": The Tortoise and the Hare?


Na?  Jetzt muss ich noch ein Märchen hier hochladen: Das Märchen vom dicken guten Pfannkuchen:



Hier gibt es sehr viele Wiederholung. Versteht ihr das Märchen?

Brezel in Bayern ist 250 Jahre alt !

Look what's been FOUND!         From a Step into German post

The 250 year-old pretzel being analyzed by experts. Photo: DPA

Bavarian archaeologists find 250-year-old pretzel

Archaeologists have made a remarkable - and delicious - discovery in Bavaria, where during an excavation they dug up a 250 year-old pretzel.

Silvia Codreanau-Windauer from the Bavarian Bureau for the Conservation of Historic Monuments confirmed that: "this is definitely the oldest pretzel ever found" - although she would give no word on whether it was past its expiration date.

Alongside the remains of the pretzel, archaeologists also found the charred remains of a bread roll and a croissant - suggesting that someone missed out on quite the historical breakfast buffet in the 18th century, the period the find has been dated to.

The baked goods are only preserved because they were burnt when originally made. Archaeologists suggest that the baker must have thrown them away in disappoinment.

The excavation site in the eastern Bavarian city of Regensburg has already proven a fruitful source for archaeologists, who discovered a wooden house thought to be up to 1200 years old there.

On this site, which lies on the Danube, there are plans to build a museum for Bavarian history to mark the centenary of the region's status as a free state in 2018.

The mayor of Regensburg Joachim Wolbergs said. "This discovery is really extraordinary, because it depicts a snippet of everyday life."

The baked delicacy is very much a part of everyday life. Pretzels may be seen as typically German by non-Germans, but really are very much a south German and Austrian delicacy.

It has been at the heart of southern German baking traditions for centuries, and in Bavaria in particular is often eaten for breakfast alongside Weißwürst (white sausage) with sweet mustard.

Codreanu-Windauer added some historical context to the discovery: "The form of the pretzel is supposed to represent the crossed arms of monks. Eventually it ended up as a fasting meal."

Monks are the symbol for the state capital Munich, and different orders and monasteries give their names to many of the Free State's most famous beers, from Augustiner to Weihenstephan - any of which are all the more delicious when enjoyed with a salty pretzel.

GERMAN IS 4 U !

This video has some really bright spots!



Let us know why you have started learning German!

German is 4-U

How many times have you seen this film?



I get a kick out of it each time I watch it!

Was hast du davon heute gelernt?

Ein Deutsches Kochbuch

Sind 722 Rezepte zu viel?  Zu wenig?  

HIER KANN MAN SIE ALLE FINDEN, auch mit Kommentaren!  Hervorragend!

Hast DU ein Lieblings-Deutsches Essen gefunden?

Danke, Till!

Maggi-Suppenwerbung

Suppen-Kaspar:  Nein!  Er will gar keine Suppe essen.  Was passiert?



Ich finde diese Werbung echt cool!

Das Essen

Was isst Annika zu Fruehstueck?
Zu Mittag?
Zu Abend?
Hat sie auch einen Nachtisch bestellt?

Die Prinzen: Be Cool, Speak Deutsch With Me

Werden wir dieses Lied in Lincoln-Sudbury am Samstag singen?

Heidelberg am Neckar und die 3 Mahlzeiten in Deutschland

Mit Annika



Der Rhein ist groesser als der Neckar.
Im Heidelberg gibt es die aelteste Universitaet Deutschlands.

Was sind die 3 Hauptmahlzeiten in Deutschland?

Blogger Adam Fletcher's "Top 10 Ways to Become German"

 

#1  PUT ON YOUR LITTLE HOUSE SHOES! 

So, here we are then my little Ausländer. Your first day as an aspiring German. You’ll have awaken in your bed, probably because it’s gotten light outside and you don’t have curtains (because curtains are evil and suggest you have something to hide).

Now, you’ll need to carefully make up your half of the bed (you will probably be sleeping in a double bed made up of two single mattresses and two single duvets). What it lacks in nocturnal romance, it more than makes up for in practicality (each makes his/her own side of the bed) the most prized of German possessions. 

Now, careful!  Don’t step off of the Bettvorleger yet, there is a very high chance that the floors will be ever so slightly colder than you expect! So cold you may go into some kind of morning shock. That’s why you need house shoes! They are requirements of Germanism.

I would like to be able to tell you why Germans are so in love with their house shoes, I’ve asked several but their answer is so incredibly unromantic, so sensible, practical and boring that my happy little barefoot brain has no idea where to store information of that nature and so just gives up committing it to memory. 

Actually, that these little house shoes prevent the outside dirt from creeping through the tidy German household is something Brits understand far less than do, for instance the Japanese.  OK.  There.  How very practical, indeed.  Is there hope after all?

 

   

#2  EAT A LONG BREAKFAST

Coming from England, I was very surprised to see how important the kitchen is to the German people. The English tend to treat it purely as a room of function, like the toilet, only with a fridge. You get in, do what you’ve got to do, get out. The living room is the heart of the home.

For the Germans, it’s a different story, they are happiest and spend the most time in their kitchens. It’s the most practical room in the house. You have a table, water, coffee, food, radio, serious, correct-posture-encouraging seating. They’ve correctly realised, if trouble does come calling, they’ll be best prepared for it by holing up in their kitchens.

German breakfasts are not meals, but elaborate feasts. If it’s a weekend, every square inch of the table will be smothered in an assortment of meats, cheeses, fruits, jams, spreads and other condiments. It’ll look like someone broke in and while hunting for valuables just tipped the contents of all the cupboards out onto the table.

The first time I experienced breakfast in a German WG (= Wohngemeinschaft, or dormitory) it lasted so long that I drifted off into a sort of breakfast coma and they had to wake me with some Nutella, which is a sort of chocolate strip you put on bread. I didn’t know you could legally combine chocolate and bread, it was quite a revelation. Now I just eat Nutella with everything, and slowly I’ve learnt to eat more and also slower, during the long drawn out German breakfasts. 

#3  BE PREPARED

So far, so good. Look at you, you’re up early, you’ve got your radio on, no doubt some Depeche Mode is blasting out, you’re eating a slow and ponderous German breakfast, you’re acclimatising very well, young Ausländer.

Now you need to enter the headspace of the Germans. If you want to be one, you need to think like one, which is a big task and we’ll cover it in more detail in later steps. But for now, start accepting the three central tenets of Germanism.  The three P’s. Planning, Preparation, Process.

Being a good German is about understanding the risks, insuring for what can be insured, preparing for what cannot. You are your own life’s project manager. Plan and prepare. Make spreadsheets, charts and lists. Think about what you’re doing each day and how you can make it more efficient.
Is it possible you arrange your shoe storage so that the most used items are nearer the top, reducing bending time? I don’t care if you’re 17, it’s taking you nearly a full minute to get your shoes on, buy a shoe horn! Optimise your processes!

Just because they call it spontaneity, doesn’t mean it can’t be scheduled. There’s a time and place for fun, and it’s to be pre-decided and marked in the calendar. All else is frivolous chaos. So sit down now and make a plan for the day, then the week, then the month.

Then book your holidays until 2017. -- To make it easier, just go to the same place. How about Mallorca? All the other Germans go there, there must be something to it.

  

#4  GET SOME INSURANCES  

    

Everyone knows it’s a jungle out there. Hence why we created the phrase. So, plucky Ausländer before you go out into the jungle and start swinging from its high branches, it’s wise you be sensibly insured. Germans, being imaginative people ran a little wild with the concept of sensibly insured.
Don’t be surprised if the Germans you meet all have personal insurance advisors.

My girlfriend communicates with her insurance advisor more often than I do with my mother. If someone invented insurance insurance, an insurance against not having the right insurance, we’d all be treated to the sight of 80 million people dying of happiness.

#5  DRESS SERIOUSLY

Plan made for the day? Insurances in place? Great. Good work!

Now it’s time to change out of your Schlumperklamotten and head outside to face the day head on. You’re going to need to get appropriately dressed.

*WARNING! AUSLÄNDER! WARNING!* Outside is this thing called nature, nature is fickle and not to be trusted!  It dances to its own illogical, changeable tune. Best dress on the safe side. You need – expensive outdoor clothing! After all, you’re going outdoors, it’s called outdoor clothing, therefore it must be necessary.

At all times, you should be dressed for a minimum of three seasons. Get some of those funky Jack Wolfskin shrousers, the trousers that zip off into shorts.

If there is even the slightest possibility you may at some point leave a pavement, be sure you are wearing high-quality hiking boots. The Germans consider anything else an act of ankle suicide.

Should you show your Ausländisch self and suddenly find yourself unprepared in the elements,  prepare for serious snickering in your direction.

 

#6  LEARN GERMAN!

 

Every nation has done things it should be embarrassed about. Dark acts in its history. The Germans are no exception. You know of what I talk – the German language.

In principle, it’s not that hard. It works in two stages. Learning words and learning the grammar. Learning words is fun, most are even similar to English thanks to our shared ancestry, you’ll zip along making great progress and really enjoying wrapping your tongue around such delights as Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel, Weltschmerz and Zeitgeist.

Then, confident at all the little snippets you’ve already accumulated, you’ll start learning the grammar, the putty that builds your mutterings into real, coherent German sentences. This is where you’ll start to feel cheated....

English, at least linguistically, has always been the biggest slut in the room. Giving and taking from other languages. Trying to make you like it. Keeping it simple. My pet theory is that the Germans, despite their committed efforts, were not as successful as the English in their world power plays and so the English language has always, historically, been forced like a bridge made of glue to ford whatever cultural divide lay between us and whoever we were conquering, sorry colonising this week, so we had to smooth down its rougher edges, which is a poetic way of saying, kick out all the hard bits.

English was forced to evolve in a way that German had not been. German retained the grammatical complexity of Old English.  Take genders as an example, present in Old English, still present in German, yet assigned utterly arbitrarily.  Sure, there are some sort of vague guidelines about how words end or that almost everything to do with time is der. That’ll help you with maybe 30 per cent of nouns. That still leaves 70 per cent that you’ll have to learn by heart so you can decline correctly.
(PRO TIP: never learn a noun without its article, going back later and adding them in is very time consuming and inefficient).  Without knowing the gender of the noun, you can’t accurately decline the endings of the sentences, nouns and adjectives or adverbs. Without it you’ll say very embarrassing things like "einer grosser Wasser", instead of "ein grosses wasser."  I know, cringeworthy.

Of course there are far harder languages to learn than German, that’s not my point. English also has its stupidities, like a staunch commitment to being unphonetic. The difference is that English was kind enough to be easy in the beginning, it ramps up slowly and encouragingly. German just plonks you down in front of a steep mountain, says “viel spass” and walks off as you begin your slow ascent.
When I first started learning the language, I was gently reminded by a friend that some of the smartest things ever written were written in this language. First you need only respect it, later you can learn to like it.  And you will.

  

#7  EARN YOURSELF [A FEW MORE] QUALIFICATIONS!

 

When I first moved here I was given the advice that “while in England, it’s he who drinks the most and doesn’t vomit on his shoes, that gets the girl.  Here it’s he who knows the most about philosophy that gets the girl”.  -- OK.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration.

But the Germans, on account of their excellent school system (at least in comparison to the English), and the extraordinarily long time they tend to study (now reducing as they’ve adopted the Bachelor/Masters system) are an intellectual bunch. As a result, they also tend to have a great number of qualifications.

Vanity always needs an audience, it’s no different with intellectual vanity. So the Germans needed to create situations in which they could gently remind other Germans how much more qualified they are than them. An outdated idea in English culture, where everything is on a first-name basis, I am Adam, he is John, it’s what in our heads that shows our qualifications and intelligence.

Here in Germany, it’s the letters before or after our full name, letters we use when addressing each other, for example Herr Dr or Frau Prof Dr.h.c Schmidt, none of this first name over-familiarity.  Even the humble doorbell offers an opportunity for neighbour one-upmanship, where academic qualifications can be listed.

You can expect occasional smirks and reassuring pats on the shoulder, when you tell them you only have a BA in Theatre Studies, as if they’ve a new found respect for the fact you’ve managed to dress yourself properly.

#8   OBEY THE LITTLE RED AMPELMÄNNCHEN!

I think the often exaggerated stereotype that Germans love to follow the rules all comes down to one little illuminated red man: Guardian and God of the crossing pedestrian.  To dare challenge his authority and step gingerly out into a completely empty road when he is still red, is to take great personal risk.

Not of getting run over, the road is completely empty after all. Bar being struck by an invisible car, you’re safe.

No, what you really risk is the scorn, the tutting and the shouts of “Halt!” from nearby Germans, who will now consider you an irresponsible, possibly suicidal, and certainly a social renegade (well-- especially if there are impressionable kiddies nearby).

Halt!  Await the GREEN Ampelmännchen.  Consider it an elaborate exercise in self-control. You’ll need all that self-control not to freak out and start shooting the first time you visit the Ausländerbehörde and find out they don’t --want to -- speak English.

  

#9  DRINK APFELSCHORLE!

Germans fear any beverage that doesn’t fizz. It brings them out in a cold sweat.

It’s a great comedic joy to live in a country where you can watch tourists and foreigners buying “classic” water, thinking that since for millions of years now “classic” water, you know, the kind that fallen from the sky since the dawn of time, was still, uncarbonated water, it would be the same here, right?

Oh no. Millions of years of water history have been conveniently forgotten. “Classic” means carbonated, of course. You big silly.


Learn to like it. If not, when visiting the homes of your new German friends, you’ll request tap water and they’ll look at you like you are some primitive savage they just found in the woods covered in a blanket of your own hair.

Related to this is Apfelsaftschorle. You know in movies when people go to therapy and then the therapist asks them to create a happy place. A safe, tranquil spot they can turn to when the world gets too big and scary. Usually it’s a beach, or a rocking chair on the front porch of an idyllic childhood home?

For Germans, that happy place is swimming naked in a lake of Apfelsaftschorle. Tired after a long day of stamping and form filling, confronted with a 15-page long restaurant menu, baffled by the burdens of choice, they always retreat to their happy place and order Apfelsaftschorle. It’s steady, reliable.

For more than a century Germans, smug with their discovery of fizzy water, all their abundant breweries producing fine beers and ales, they didn’t believe it could get any better. Then some bright spark tried adding a little apple juice to that fizzy water. Creating something equally refreshing, but 6 per cent more fun! It was a near riot.

People were not ready. It was almost too fun. An all-night discoparty for the tastebuds. Of course, it won’t taste like that to you, with your funny foreign pallet. Apfelsaftschorle will taste to you as it really is, a fractional improvement on water’s boring taste.

#10  EAT GERMAN FOOD! 

It’s hard to discuss German cuisine without mentioning Wurst, at which point you’ll feel like I’m smacking you about the head with the stereotype stick. So I won’t. Wurst is important, but I think more for what it represents than how it tastes.  Here, meat is the linchpin of every meal. Being a vegetarian here is probably about as much fun as being blind at the zoo.

The notable exception is Spargel Saison (asparagus season), where the country goes gaga as the almightly Spargel is being waved around everywhere, like a sort of culinary magic wand, which coincidentally it does rather resemble.  Almost every restaurant features Spargel in almost every course. 

In conclusion, German cuisine is to the world of food, what the band Eiffel 65 are to the history of popular music: present, but largely a footnote.


You are probably wondering how I wrote an entire entry about German food without mentioning that lumpy S word – Sauerkraut. Fear not, it deserves an entire entry of its own….. It's certainly present as a side dish to many a meal.  Would you have it any other way?  YUM!   Right?

Was isst man beim OKTOBERFEST?

 Von Chefkoch des Käfer-Zeltes, Andreas Schinharl