When it came to food I really didn’t know what to expect. Whenever you think of Germany in America you think of their Bratwurst, cured meats, and the like and having stuff like that in the US (picturing Slim Jims and hot dogs) looking back I realized I didn’t know what to expect. What I found was meat that I never would have believed could harbor so much flavor! Not only were the countless options of what cured meat or Bratwurst you could buy, of which there were thousands, delicious but so was the German style meatball, Koningsberger Klopse. Although eating wasn’t hard, the lack of variety was. Being forced to eat out so much we soon found that every Biergarten had the same thing, Bratwurst, bread, and potatoes. You could find french fries everywhere you looked and every way a potato could be prepared it could be found. Of course plenty filling, for the first time in my life I came back to the apartment craving anything green.
The food culture In Germany is different as well. By food culture I mean to say the manners appropriate at restaurants and the food markets they have there. First of all, Germans seem like they don’t like to stockpile. The food markets are small, with good selections, yet you couldn’t find anything in bulk, as if everyone there shopped for food they would eat in the next day or two and that was it. I actually think that this is a good idea because it makes it harder for food to be forgotten and go to waste and also encourages cooking and healthy eating. The other shock when it came to food was how you were supposed to act in restaurants. You couldn’t bring in any outside refreshments (including water bottles) and if you ordered something small or without a drink the waitstaff seemed irritated. I’m sure that’s not true for every restaurant in Germany but it was true for the many we went to.
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