Tag Archives: german

It is considered rude to refuse seconds on a meal

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 23rd, 2012
Primary Language: English

The source’s Grandmother was from the old German sector of Indianapolis, he was careful to include that she lived on the same street as the Vonnegut family. He’s not sure if it’s a German or family practice, but his Grandmother had two beliefs when it came to food. One, that brownies and cake were acceptable breakfast foods, and two, that if you don’t take seconds on a meal, it’s a sign that you don’t like the food.

His Grandmother’s recipes were all old family recipes from Germany, and were for the most part, extremely unhealthy. In particular, he recalls that the family recipe for brownies is over 150 years old, and calls for four sticks of butter.

So his family couldn’t watch their weight, and eat meals with Grandma. If anyone refused seconds on a dish she made, she would be extremely offended. She would take it as a sign you didn’t care for her food, and then threaten to never make that particular dish again.

Needless to say, the source’s Grandmother ended up killing her family with love, his Grandfather suffered from adult onset diabetes, and the source himself is plagued by “body image issues” that follow him to this day.

 

German Fermented Vegetables

Nationality: German-American
Performance Date: February 2007

An interesting tradition my mother recalls from growing up is that when she and her family visited the (paternal) grandparents, the Rahenkamps, her grandmother would always serve some kind of relish or pickled item along with the evening meal.  Since the Rahenkamp family is of German descent, this is not surprising – one can hardly imagine German food without thinking of sauerkraut and pickled cucumbers.  However, Germany is only one of many countries where these types of foods exist.  In fact, most if not all cultures prepared and ate at least one of these items at one time or another.  Unlike the prosperous free world today where we think of these items as condiments that we add to our food because they are tasty, past cultures kept these foods, which were originally fermented, out of necessity.  Fermentation was a way to preserve foods for months without refrigeration, and to make foods that are hard on the bowels (like raw cabbage) more digestible.  Adding salt to vegetables to prevent mold growth, and allowing the bacteria and yeast in the local environment to take over, our ancestors could preserve items for long trips and cold winters.  The friendly microbes in the vegetables (or fruits or milk or other foods) break down the sugars and convert them to acids as a defense mechanism, producing a complex, sour flavor.  Eating such foods fortifies the immune system and gastrointestinal tract with beneficial bacteria, and the acid and enzymes released during fermentation aid in the digestion of the rest of the meal.  My informant, my mother, believes that her grandmother served these relishes as part of the tradition of using them for good digestion.  Unfortunately, most pickled items seen today are not fermented, but merely canned in vinegar (including those my great grandmother used).  They carry none of the health benefits and are sterile instead of crawling with friendly microbes.  The real fermentation process actually increases nutrients – sauerkraut, in fact, was used to prevent scurvy on long voyages across the Atlantic, due to its high vitamin C content and its ability to keep for months without spoiling.

Annotation
  The Great Physician’s Rx for Health and Wellness, by Jordan S. Rubin, page 10, concurs that “Every sauce and condiment has its beginnings as a fermented food and throughout history has always been healthy.”  Several fermented foods are mentioned, including ketchup, which is credited to the Chinese, who began it as a fermented fish brine.

Munlie Men

Nationality: European, Lebanese
Age: 56
Occupation: Children's Book Writer
Residence: Brea, California
Performance Date: 8 April 2012
Primary Language: English

After discussing a few traditions on Easter Day, this informant told me about her own holiday tradition that she started with her family. A few years ago, this informant found a recipe to make Munlie bread men in a magazine.  

This is the recipe for making a sweet German bread that is shaped into “little men” which is what Munlie or Mannlein is translated into in German. The informant discovered that these “little men” were a German Christmas Eve custom. Children would decorate this bread into little shapes and leave the bread out for Santa, the German version of cookies and milk.

There is actually also a German Children’s song “Das bucklige Männlein”, which translates to “The Hunchbacked Little Man” and this is why the bread men are twisted into outrageous looking shapes. After finding this recipe, my informant started sharing it with her family and now they make them every Christmas without fail. Every Christmas Eve, they make the bread and then Christmas morning, they shape and eat the bread.

This recipe consists of ingredients like lemon peel, honey and anise seed, which gives it the signature sweet flavor. And then to make a Munlie, there are much more specific directions, which were found with the recipe.

“To shape each munlie, start by cutting 3/4-inch notches on opposite sides of the log about 1 1/2 inches from an end (this marks the shoulders). Twist 1 1/2-inch section over 1 full turn to define the head. If desired, pinch and slightly pull the tip to make a pointed cap. To create arms (step 2), make slighty slanting cuts on opposite sides of the log starting about 3 1/2 inches below shoulders and cutting up about 2 3/4 inches (leave about 1/2 to 1 inch across center for chest). For legs, cut from end opposite head, making a slash through middle of the log and up about half of its length. To animate each little man, pull and twist the arms and legs into active positions, making at least 5 twists in each limb (step 3). Keep the limbs well separated for good definition of activity. Space the prancing munlies about 2 inches apart on the baking pan.”

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1216/is_v173/ai_3538967/

I believe this custom emphasizes the idea of family during a holiday. This is a recipe that allows the children to join in and make the food with their parents and then use their creativity to decorate it after. As with many holidays, Christmas time holds so many unique traditions and just like people make  Gingerbread men and leave cookies and milk out for Santa, this is the German way of celebrating the festivities.

 

Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Poway, California
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: German

German Proverb: “Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten”

Direct Translation: “Pour the baby out with the bath”

Common Translation: “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water”

My informant doesn’t consider himself fluent in German, but he’s taken several years of German coursework.  Last year he was studying a course reader and at first glance, he thought he had read that someone killed their baby.  However, when he read the page over again and realized it was just this proverbial expression that he recognized in English.  He could not recall the first time he had heard the expression in English, however.

My informant understands the proverb to mean that one should be careful not to discard something worth holding onto.  While a baby in a tub of bath water may be the most extreme example of this sentiment, my informant likes to use it because it’s dramatic and this makes it useful as a persuasion tactic. He also suggested that this proverb is commonly used because anyone can discard something they would rather keep and that there is no German significance to the proverb, other than that its origin.

With respect to using the proverb, it comes in handy when convincing that there may be valuable material in what may seem to be a trash.  The idea is that one can get another party to be careful not to confuse important material with junk.  It is also important to note that with the advent of better indoor plumbing, bath water no longer has to be thrown out, given that most modern showers have drains.  So the popularization of modern indoor plumbing indicates a time period that the proverb existed before, or a terminus ante quiem.  It’s important to realize that regardless of the change in technology, this proverb continues makes sense because the context can be understood.

I recently heard this proverb in a chemistry lecture.  The professor was explaining that when constructing a certain diagram, it was only required that we only had to represent the lowest energy model.  In this case, we were allowed to leave out part of a diagram.  He used the proverb to encourage the class not to discard a part of the diagram that was still needed.  In accordance with my professor’s example, I also believe it means not to get rid of anything you might need when discarding what you don’t.

German New Year’s Dinner

Nationality: German/Irish-American
Age: 52
Residence: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English

My informant, whose background actually features multiple nationalities, remembers her traditional dinner that they had every New Years day for good luck. It consisted of pork and sauerkraut. When she talked of this dinner she actually referred to it as a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition, the Pennsylvania Dutch actually referring to German Immigrants, a mispronunciation of the German word for Germans, Deutsch.

The sauerkraut is cooked in a crock-pot with the pork for the entire day, and my informant said that apples were sometimes included in the pot with the sauerkraut to make it sweeter. Considering the abundance of apples in the region, this is no surprise that they were used.

The Pennsylvania Dutch traditional dish from which my informant’s contemporary meal comes from is actually something known as hog maw, which was pork sausage and potatoes stuffed into in a cleaned pig’s stomach, boiled, and sliced.

My informant also mentioned that kielbasa, an Eastern European traditional sausage, was also included with the shredded pork and sauerkraut.  This influence comes from the Pittsburgh area, which features a large eastern European population that immigrated to the area for jobs in the steel mills around the turn of the century 1900s.