Food

Oh Yes, I do have an entire post dedicated to food. My rationale: food is a big aspect of culture.

For breakfast during the week, I usually have a bowl of cereal because it's the fastest for me. On the weekends, I have Bröcthen, similar to a bread roll, but so much tastier. One half has butter with Johannesberre jelly and the other has Nutella. I had to look up what a Johannesberre is, and the Internet says its a red currant berry. I still have no idea what that is, and I had never heard of it nor seen it before coming here. That would make sense, though, because the Internet also says its native to Western Europe. This will be one of the foods I bring back to the U.S. because it's a favorite of mine. The taste is pretty tart, too. Occasionally, I will break from routine and have a pastry from the bakery. 

Lunch during the week: the large majority of students at my school bring lunch from home. It's pretty similar to lunch food in the US. For example, I usually bring a meat and cheese sandwich, apple, banana, red peppers, and hard boiled egg. An interesting thing with the sandwich, we buy a legitimate loaf of dark bread and slice it with a powered bread slicer. It's like a ham slicer, but for bread. It is very cool, and it can be adjusted for how think to slice the bread, too! Most Germans have this idea that Americans ONLY eat white bread, ie Wonderbread, when that is not really the case. Lunch on the weekends is a large meal usually consisting of potatoes, meat, and vegetables. Red cabbage is a prominent vegetable, and just as you may suspect, sausage is a prominent meat here.  

Dinner during the week is typically smaller than dinner in the US. Typical foods might be salad, bread with salami, cheese, or some type of spread with vegetables such as peppers and cucumbers, pasta, or meat (but not too much). Dinner on the weekend is even smaller because of the big lunch and is usually the bread thing I just talked about. 

I'm not saying those things I mentioned are the only things I eat, but those are just typical foods. 

I haven't had a single meal that I haven't liked. The food isn't really that strange for me. It really is a lot of meat and potatoes. One thing that I tried since I've been here is mixing my foods. I used to always eat my food item by item on my plate but here, they mix everything together. You start by mashing the potatoes to cover the plate, then you put on the meat, then the vegetable, then the gravy type sauce. It's actually pretty good this way. 

Meal times are pretty much the same in the US. 

Something that is different is that most Germans drink carbonated water, and there are actually different levels of carbonation. At home I drink still water, but when I'm out or at another person's house, carbonated water is fine for me. I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's whatever. The biggest thing for me is that it is the opposite of refreshing, so I can't imagine exercising and then drinking carbonated water. 

I know a stereotypical German food is Sauerkraut, and I have eaten it a few times here. It's not bad, but it has a very strong taste that I think not everyone would like. I wouldn't eat it by itself, but mixed in with other foods it's fine. 

Also different here: Germans don't really like the mint-chocolate combination. That means no mint chip ice cream. I've asked a few people to see if it is a general thing and they all say that Germans generally don't like it. I did find it once in Hamburg, but it didn't taste that great. 

Bread is an all day everyday type of thing. Fresh bread all the time. I would say it's similar to rolls in the US except there are so many types here and it's 10x better. 

Döner: a Turkish food that pretty much all German people and I are in love with. I've heard that it's not really in Turkey, but I'm actually going there in a couple weeks so I will report with my findings. Döner is strips of meat that go inside this bread that functions as a holder for it all. Imagine a soft taco shape except there is only an opening at the top and way bigger. Then they add vegetables of the costumer's choosing such as onions, lettuce, and cabbage (white and red). Cream based sauces are added and it is delicious, although it can get messy.

Here's a funny story. A typical food here is schnitzel, which is a breaded meat that you fry. Well, one time my host mom and I made it together so I could learn, and I really messed it up... One turned out fine, one was merely  okay, one had too much pepper, and the other had too much salt. I felt so bad! But I have since redeemed myself (luckily for my host family, haha). I made it again and I got raving reviews from my host family! This is a dish I could definitely make in the USA.

Shannon