A Week in Germany: Food

Let's be clear on this: Germany is not and never will be a country of immigrants. People have nonchalantly told me that they can trace their entirely German family back to the 15th century and are constantly amused when I attempt to tell them where my family is from (I've resorted to just naming the first six Eastern European countries that come to mind). But, that being said, there are a lot of immigrants in Mannheim. (Semi-related: there's a really big American military base between Mannheim and Heidelberg. The second-runner-up in Germany's Next Top Model—I promise this is the last time I mention it—is from Mannheim, and her dad's an American GI.) Here's what happened: in the 1970s, Germany's economy was booming, and the Mediterranean's was, well, not. A large number of people from Italy, Greece and Turkey made their way up to Germany to find work, and while the majority of the Italians and Greeks eventually returned home, the Turks stayed.

I mention this now because it is nearly impossible to discuss German food without bringing up food from other countries, and Turkey in particular. For all the talk about traditional German food, the number of real Germans eating bratwurst with any consistency is pretty low (at least outside of Bavaria, but that's basically where all the German stereotypes hang out). One of my hosts put on a dinner with weisswurst and pretzels, but only because her friends got a kick out of eating them once a year. In reality, the favorite breakfast of Germany is bread and cheese, the favorite quick lunch is pasta with pesto sauce, and the favorite street food is döner kebap.

Part of me just wants this post to be an ode to döner. It's magnificent. It's everything good about gyros combined with everything good about shawarma, and I already know I'm going to miss it like crazy when I get back to the States. Döner is to Turkish food in Germany what chow mein is to Chinese food in the US. Even though Turks have been cooking meat on rotating spits for years, the döner in its current form was invented in 1971, when Mahmut Aygun decided to put the meat in a pita rather than on a bed of rice so that drunk people could eat it more conveniently (Wikipedia is the greatest thing ever). In Mannheim—which according to one of my hosts has the highest per capita Turkish population in Germany—döner is readily available on most street corners, and it's still the only menu item I've ordered multiple times here.

I don't know if this photo does it justice, but this is the most delicious thing ever.

Of course, there are plenty of other options at Turkish restaurants (including sheep's head soup and ayran, which is a combination of liquid yogurt and Ex-Lax), and Mannheim even has an area nicknamed Little Istanbul, which sports a cadre of Turkish grocery stores, restaurants and bakeries. Of course, there's a range of other foreign cuisines to choose from (Italian, Chinese, Spanish, etc. There's even a frozen yogurt/bubble tea place that I can go if I ever start missing Claremont), and the German food isn't too shabby either. I'm especially gaining an appreciation for German bakeries, which have pretzels readily available for 30 Euro Cents and sell salami sandwiches for breakfast.

A German bakery and a Turkish bakery. Both are pretty great.

Still, my favorite "German" (and I'm using this term pretty loosely, because it can probably be found anywhere in Europe) food so far is a piece of toast topped with salted ham, fried eggs, tomatoes and cucumbers. Although I have been digging the curry wurst. And the french fries with mayonnaise. And the beer, but that's another post in and of itself.

This meal was one of the highlights of my CouchSurfing experience. And my CouchSurfing experience has been pretty freaking awesome so far.

Basically, there's a lot to like about the food in Germany. Of course, there's also some really weird stuff here, but I'll leave a fuller discussion of that theme to a later post. For now, I'll just leave you with a mention of Radler, which is probably the most German thing I've ever heard of. Apparently, back in the day, bikers (radler means cyclist in German) would drink a lot of beer and get dehydrated/drunk during their rides. Someone had the brilliant idea of giving them a beer that would also quench their thirst and give them some electrolytes. So they decided to mix beer with sprite, and the Radler was born. Personally, I think it's pretty disgusting, although all the Germans I've met seem to enjoy it. But I do like the fact that the Radler has become the "girly" drink of Germany. That's right, instead of Bacardi Breezers or Smirnoff Ices, German women just put some soda in their beer, and they're good to go. Fantastic.