h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh dear, I'm not very coherent this morning. Never mind, you get the idea, I hope. Good restaurants serve really fresh vegetables and salads, is what I meant to say. And as for burger places in Germany, I ought to mention that *by name* they're the same as in America, so people think they're eating American food there.

>> *by name* they're the same as in America, so people think they're eating American food there.<< and hence small wonder that American food doesn't have a good reputation here
I'm just glad that I'm sort of 'out of touch' with the m-i-l at the moment, or else she'd bring me tons of asparagus to peel and cook - because she loves to eat it, and thinks she's doing me a favour when treating me to the ( very expensive) stuff

for me the occasional verkaufsoffener Sonntag is the difference between sanity and the alternative!

went too early...

what I mean by the Italien influence is that the presentation of some German staples has been influenced by Italian (and, dare I say it... nouvelle cuisine) to give something a little lighter, more pleasing to the eye.

Of course, right now all you can get in Germany is asparagus... not quite sick of it yet, but I'm getting there!

They're crazy with their asparagus, aren't they ? And I absolutely despise the 'sauce Hollandaise' a bit of butter does nicely

sauce Hollandaise, as made by my very own personal is very tasty.

However 99.9% of what you eat in restaurants is out of a packet.

I like it hot with melted butter, or cold with vinagrette.

What puts me off is the raw yolk in the sauce -it turns my stomach. there are a few other things I'd never eat, can't recall the names now, one is a dessert -containg raw eggs

Asparagus with melted butter, salt & pepper!

RF

..and ham and new potatoes in their skins - it's ok, yes.

Gherkin, basil & marmalade pasties?

That sounds a bit odd for a combination.

It is. You really need the Tabasco, Marmite & Amaretto gravy to bring it all together.

You've just mad that up -not even the English food can be that bad

Yeah, you got me, but I bet some student, somewhere, has tried it!

Actually B'elana, you might be able to answer a question. When I was a wee sprog in Germany we used to get sausages in odd 'rolls with a pre-drilled hole'. The sausages were wrinkly and grey, sold from stands outside big supermarkets etc, and I think I loved 'em. Any idea what they're called? (this was in the mid 70s).

Hmmm, if you had said the sausages used to be red, then I'd have known, should have been either Danish Pølser, or what we call ' Currywurst',the whole thing being called : Hot Dog' I guess it was just a 'Bratwurst', which is grey, but not wrinkly - not as far as I know.

Wasn't a Bratwurst (although, coincdentally, it's the prescence of bratwurst in the fridge that made me think of the other ones).

Come to think of it, there's a good chance my folks will remember.

Maybe it was a regional thing ? Many regions have their own speciaL sausages, in Bremen, you get some called ' Pinkel' which you can't buy anywhere else, then there is 'Grützwurst', another regional sausage ( Northern Germany), both sorts are eaten with curly kale .

Could be regional, but as I recall it we generally bought them at stands outside supermarkets etc, so seemed pretty mass-produced. Of course, I was only 6 years old so the memory might be a little wobbly!

I remember the Danish Hot Dogs with the Pølser being quite popular when I was a teen - which is about the time you were 6 years old, but they were shrieking red in colour, you'd edfinately not remember them as grey. Grey to me sound like some sort of Bratwurst, Nürnberger, Thüringer, whatever.

I'm beginning to think they might have been bratwurst & I imagined the knobbly bit! I'll ask the folks next time I speak to them.