Con-FOOD-shun

Most of the time when we’re buying things we can figure out more or less what it is. Almost everything we see in the grocery store has a comparable or even identical item at home in the US. Granted, some of the packaging is a little different to accommodate smaller German refrigerators (i.e. square 1-liter cartons of milk instead of our big gallon jugs) but mostly it’s the same stuff.

There are a few notable exceptions. For one thing, there are different sizes (have you seen sausage by the meter—or even the yard—in the US? Me neither) or varieties (many, MANY different kinds of deli ham products, almost all of them some form of ham sausage—chopped, pressed, formed—and noone I know is enthusiastic about pressed ham). For the most part I can tell what it is, even if I don’t want it. On the other hand, it can get confusing when confronted with an entire dairy case filled with Frischkäse as to which one I want. Incidentally, I chose incorrectly and came home with the cottage cheese instead of the cream cheese. Sigh. Now I know to look for the cremig stuff.

Some things, however, have no identifiable corollary. Quark, for instance. I don’t really know what it is. It’s a dairy product, sort of a cross between yogurt and sour cream?—I can tell you that much and no more. It comes in many varieties. I’ve seen herb flavor, chili flavor, garlic, speise quark (which seems to mean quark for eating—why else would you buy it?), and vanilla quark which is a really yummy sweetened thing. But what’s actually in it? I have no idea. I bet it’s good with Rote Grutze on it…another one that doesn’t carry over. More like berry pie filling than anything else, but go ahead and put it on your yogurt, or your breakfast cereal, or your waffle, or, well, your quark. Why not.

And then there are the times when we’re just completely at a loss. We stopped for Kaffee and Kuchen the other day after going to a ceramic studio to decorate some items for our kitchen. The hostess was getting a little grumpy with our indecisiveness (not to mention our lack of German) and was pushing for orders. The kids kept picking up the cover over the muffins to see what kind they were (apparently quite the faux pas here) and then we couldn’t get a straight answer about what made hot chocolate different from kid’s hot chocolate (“there’s dark, and Italian, and this kind, and that kind, and kinder chocolate”) so by the time we finished ordering everyone was impatient. We sat and waited for a while and played with the ubiquitous bees in the sugar shakers, and eventually our food came. I got a lovely Mice-plate (a variety of cheeses), the kids got their muffins, Katy got strudel with both ice cream AND vanilla sauce (grrr). Mary (the one German-speaker among us, mind you) got a lovely bowl of ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream. Well, we assumed there was ice cream under there, because it was invisible under the mountain of sahne. We nibbled our way along like good little mice, and gradually plates emptied out and the ice cream became evident…and it became clearer why there had been so much cream. The Eis was…well…green. Not your mint-chip green, or your garden-variety pistachio green, no. This was GREEN. “What flavor is it, Mary?” we all asked. “Actually,” she said, “I can’t tell.” Seanna tried it. Malcolm tasted some. Annika too. Nobody could put a name to it. But, well, Eis is Eis, so she ate it all up. Eventually our hostess came and cleared the plates, and Mary asked what kind it was. “Elk-land,” she said. What? “ALGIN Eis,” (nice clear enunciation that time). “Did you like it?” Mary mumbled some non-committal answer, being unclear as to what she had just eaten. Keep in mind she’s the German speaker. “What was it?” we all asked. “I still can’t tell,” she had to admit. We all agreed on the word, especially after Annika confirmed having seen it on the board, next to vanilla, but none of us had an inkling what it could be. It seemed, oddly, to resemble algae. But who the heck makes ice cream with algae in it? And why? Is this some weird health-food thing where you to eat something bad for you and good for you at the same time? Or is it just a vengeful booby-trap for unsuspecting and annoying Americans? After looking it up in the dictionary, we’re fairly certain that it was in fact algae ice cream. Mary spent the evening convincing her stomach that now that it was down, better that it should stay there even if it was pretty gross.

Never let your guard down. Not for a second.