American Food

There's nothing like a foreign flavor, or a taste of home. It's been two months in Germany, and I have made a total of 4 dishes from home.

My second week here I made my mom's secret (now not so secret) Rosemary's Rosemary Chicken recipe. Actually, I think it was originally my grandma's chicken recipe, and perhaps it originated long before that. But that's not the point.

Rosemary Chicken is my favorite food at home, and I wanted to do it justice. It took awhile to explain to Jutta and Stephan that I wanted the leg of the chicken with the thigh attatched. It was a very lucky chance that I actually got to use the part of the chicken I wanted. Jutta bought me only legs, but she had also bought the combination leg and thigh to freeze for another meal.

Jutta also managed to find some fresh rosemary. It was more of a potted plant, and I think I used the entire thing. They had steak seasoning as well, which made me very happy (I was very happy that night).

In the end the chicken turned out very good. It tasted almost as good as mom's.

During the first month we also managed to get our hands on some cheddar cheese at a market in Wesel. Germany has a lot of cheese, from France and Switzerland, most of which I don't like that much. But cheddar cheese is extremely rare and a lot more expensive, because it must come from the US or England. This particular small block of cheese came from England, and it was delicious.

On a particularly rainy day, I made Maccheroni and Cheese with it. Maccheroni was another one of those foods difficult to explain. Jutta and Stephan had about 5 types of noodles called "maccheroni" but they looked nothing like the maccheroni noodles my family, at least, uses in Maccheroni and Cheese. Federico, the AFSer from Italia, explained it to me later. Apparently 80% of noodles are maccheroni, the smaller type of noodle. I never knew that. I learn something new every day here.

The maccheroni was delicious. The cheddar cheese was marvelous. Lucky Stephan doesn't like cheese, so I got to eat 3 big platefuls of it.

I also made some not-so-cheesy Potato Cheese Soup with the rest of my lovely cheese. Stephan actually ate some this time, and even he thought it was delicious. It turned out a tad salty, but it was still edible.

This last week was chocolate chip cookies. Those turned out nothing like back home, and I think it was because of the brown sugar. They were way too sweet than normal, because the sugar grains were so much bigger and didn't have as much molasses as ours. No matter, though. I gave some to the neighbors to try, and they passed the test.

Normally, though, we eat German food (hmm...wonder why). Sometimes Jutta will make something Austrian, or Italian, but not too often. We eat most meals with some form of potatoes, or kohl, or both. We do eat a fair amount of wurst, but not so much as the stereotypes hold. I've eaten schnitzel here perhaps 3 times, bratwurst maybe a tad more often. Bratwurst is like the hamburger here. At every market or social function in the city people will sell bratwurst, and that's when we eat it.

Today was another feiertag (holiday) for NRW. Yesterday was also a holday, but it's one of the ones that the school gets to decide, and my school decided to have it yesterday to avoid the annoying Veterans Day type event. Some German states had yesterday off for religious reasons, apparently (e.g., Thuringen and Sachson) but not NRW. Anyway, I rode down to Sanja's host family's house for an impromptu visit (only the second time I've done that with an AFSer). Her host mom had some leftover Kurbiss Suppe which she had made in celebration of Halloween. I cannot express how good it was. Then again, how many times in my life have I eaten soup with pumpkin in it?