I ate that! Take 1

Technical difficulties have caused publication delays and a backlog of posts, so please bear with me. As I only have one week left in Germany, I will probably continue putting up new (old) posts throughout August, at which point teaching and dissertation reading/writing begin. This post is about my recent culinary adventures in Berlin. The title plays off the name of a flickr group (I Ate This) that encourages people to upload photographs of the dishes they’ve eaten, with particular interest in those that are different, creative, or unusual. Unfortunately, most of the food experiences I will describe here remain undocumented, as I either did not have my camera with me or did not want to take photos. So you will have to use your imagination for this one!

Food from the Land

Quark mit Erdbeeren

The lead photo is from the field trip I took one beautiful afternoon to Domäne Dahlem, a working organic farm and museum on the site of a very old manor estate in Dahlem, once a village outside of Berlin and now a chic suburb. I biked past the (Embassy of) the Republic of Morroco while getting lost on my way there [!]. I rested after the trip from the archive with a refreshing snack from their outdoor café. Quark is an untranslatable dairy product similar to yogurt but thicker. Maybe you can tell from the photograph that the advertised strawberries were accompanied by Himbeeren (raspberries)—not that I was complaining! Their tastiness reminded me that I hadn’t had any yet this summer. So on my way out after seeing the exhibits in the manor house I bought 5 Euros worth, enough for dessert that night and for breakfast for the rest of week. In the name of participatory research I probably should have chosen something new to me, like Stachelbeeren or Johannisbeeren, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them, and the raspberries looked so plump that I knew they would taste delicious. “Excuses, excuses,” said DH when I told him. I should have responded that they reminded me of him. Or at least, of the yummy raspberry pies he bakes!

Street Food

Currywurst ohne Darm (mit Curry und Ketchup) + Pommes Frites (mit Curry und Ketchup) + Fanta + Magnum Gold

The day I moved across Berlin, I used the necessity of eating on the run to sample the local street food, namely the famous curry sausage stand down the street from my old apartment. I opted for the skinless sausage, which was rather tubular and wrinkled. It came on a little paper tray, chopped in pieces, and covered in curry powder and ketchup. The french fries received the same treatment. Other options included Bockwurst (a sausage with skin) and “Pommes rot-weiss,” or “french fries red-white.” That refers to the sauces: ketchup and mayonnaise. As the really well-conceived Freilicht Museum Domäne Dahlem exhibit “In Bewegung--Wie Alltag sich verändert" (In Movement--How the everyday has changed) noted, even the language of street food has been abbreviated, like the preparation time and eating time. I rounded out my meal with a rare soda and an ice cream stick, which I discovered only after purchasing it was coffee-flavored (I’m not really a coffee fan). If you know me you know that I would never eat like this on a regular basis! Still, it was worth it for the experience. I may yet try a Berlin Bockwurst, if I make it to the Currywurst Museum, which is very close to the library I use here. But I think I’ll pass on the mayo-covered fries.

Restaurant Food
Gebratene Kalbsleber “Berliner Art” mit Kartoffeln, Zwiebeln, und Äpfeln + Salat

The first weekend after I moved I was facing Saturday evening and Sunday after church home alone and without internet. The family I’m renting from was gone on vacation, and the other subletter’s girlfriend was in town. How was I going to entertain myself? I decided to visit the Körperwelten (Body Worlds) exhibit after the library had closed, but I hadn’t packed dinner. At a local restaurant down the street (Jedermanns, or Everyman), I jumped at the chance to order Berlin-style fried calf liver. I’ve actually been looking for an opportunity to try kidney, too, after a friend of my roommate in Dresden talked them up. The liver looked like a dark-brown Wiener Schnitzel and tasted mostly firm (like meat). I thought it was good. It came with a puree of butter with some potato for consistency, a lot of onions, and two apple rings. The portion was big enough that I was able to bring half home for dinner the next night. Meanwhile, the Körperwelten exhibit showed all manner of body parts, with a particular emphasis on the heart and circulatory system, but the most sensational piece was a plastinated giraffe, clinging halfway up a palm tree, its rib cage opened like a pair of wings. I'll let you in on a little something I learned while taking anatomy in medical school: the dissecting lab turns some people off from food, but some times certain tissues can look like various foodstuffs and some people hungry! I fall into neither group. Maybe because my stomach clock is a law unto itself. :-)