Potatoes and Breakfast

As the date on this post will tell you, I have been a bit remiss in my blogging duties. This was mostly because I had nothing new to say. Friday was Allerheiligen, a religious holiday observed by law in the primarily Catholic state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. This meant no classes. What I did in my free time was, sadly, nothing. This laziness continued through the weekend. The only semi-productive activity I undertook was crocheting a hat and baking a double batch of pumpkin bread.

Yesterday, I discovered the difference between festkochende and mehlig kochende Kartoffeln. The terms literally mean 'firm cooking' and 'floury or mealy cooking' respectively. This means waxy or starchy. Waxy potatoes take longer to bake, do not get as fluffy, and stay generally firmer than their starchier brothers. I found that out after I tried to cook them. My attempt to make twice baked potatoes resulted in half-baked spuds with a filling whose consistency resembled potato salad more than potato mash. Oh well. Now that I know what I am dealing with I can prepare them properly in the future.

Today I did not have to worry about cooking lunch. Student Body general assemblies for all majors met today. To encourage participation, the Mechanical Engineering Student Body arranged for a brunch for those who actually attended the meeting. This is just another reason I love being a MechE. The assembly itself did not excite me much. New officers were nominated and then immediately elected by show of hands. Democracy at its laziest. The other officers went over their responsibilities and what they had done so far in the semester. The Treasurer reassured us that the organization wasn't broke. That was about it. The doors flew wide and a swarm of hungry college students flooded the hallway.

I had the good fortune to sit near the exit. I arrived at the cafeteria before most of the crowd and began loading up my plate. Brunch in America typically implies scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and pancakes with perhaps some cold cuts and sandwich bread thrown in. German breakfast is different. It often consists of a roll cut in half and smeared with honey and nutella one one side and cream cheese and cold cuts on the other. Don't worry though; those halves don't get put back together. You eat everything open face, that is unless you use the roll as a bun for a Wiener Würstchen. the only hot food served at the brunch. If you guessed that this "little sausage" has to do with American "wieners", you're right. It is basically a hot dog, if a bit longer and containing more actual animal parts. The word wiener actually just means Viennese. A frankfurter (Frankfurter Würstchen), on the other hand, comes from Frankfurt and contains pork as opposed to the pork and beef found in a wiener. The subtleties of the sausage are without end.

Here is a visual aid for the German Breakfast.

1 comment:

  1. If you ever make poato pancakes, you want the starchy ones - not the red or waxy ones.

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