Grocery Shopping

There are many things the Germans do that make a lot of sense. If I'd point out how logical some of their habits are, I might expect the response "Why would one do it any other way?" That's one of the Three Pillars of German Engineering told to me by an American friend who works for a German company near Esslingen, and I haven't met a German yet with whom I've shared that who disagreed!

One important German value is Order. "Ordnung muss sein" (There must be order) is all but a law over here. Why would one NOT want order in his or her life? In some ways order is forced upon us here in Germany, but no one minds much.

At grocery stores, for instance, there is no employee sent out to collect carts every 30 minutes, and there are no carts scattered around the parking lot left by lazy shoppers or drifting unmanned with the wind across the lot until its journey is stopped by a parked car. All the unused (pre-used?) shopping carts are nestled together in the parking lot at various locations parked in semi-sheltered sheds, awaiting the next shoppers.  How do German stores manage this?

They require a deposit for using a shopping cart.  In order to obtain a cart for your purchases, you go from your car straight to the shed where the carts are chained together, insert a Euro coin into the slot which releases the chain, and you push your cart into the store.  After you have made your purchases and unloaded them from the cart into your car, you push the cart back to the shed, plug the chain from the already parked cart into your cart, remove your Euro, and go on your merry way.

What if you forgot to bring a Euro with you?  Then you'll have to hope that what you need to buy will fit in the little baskets that are available for you inside the store (no deposit required). You probably won't forget your coin more than once, after which you'll always leave it in the cup holder of your car.

You can also find keychains nowadays that have a little insert the size of a Euro coin, which the carts accept. I have found this little device quite handy.

Another cost- and labor-saving procedure here concerns the bagging of groceries. The stores do not hire baggers. Customers bag their own groceries. No one asks "Paper or plastic?", because the bags aren't free. If you forgot your own canvas bags, you purchase large, sturdy plastic bags at the checkout for 10 cents each. Savy, frugal shoppers will always bring their own bags, of course. ("Why would you do it any other way?")

So shoppers put their groceries on the conveyer belt, the cashier scans them, and the shopper grabs the items and tosses them back into the cart. There's time to bag them up later (at your car, in the sunshine, rain, or snow), so don't hold others up by bagging at the checkout.

Lastly, in the produce section, shoppers weigh their own selections on a scale that also prints out a scannable sticker, which the shopper sticks to the little plastic bag into which he puts the fruit or veggies. If you forget to do this, there is a scale not too far from the checkout to which the cashier will send you. That happened to me. Once. The scowls of the shoppers behind me were enough to deter a repeat offense.

Germans must be fascinated by grocery shopping in the U.S. At least in Wisconsin, someone bagged my groceries into bags I didn't have to pay for without expecting a tip. The cashier weighed my fruits and veggies. And carts, though there were several corrals to which shoppers were asked to return them, were often scattered willy-nilly around the parking lot.  A Swabian would shake his head while thinking, "If they had to plug a dollar into the cart to use it, they would never leave it in the middle of the lot in such a disorderly fashion!  Ordnung muss sein!"

Dreikönigstag 20*C+M+B+13

Today is Dreikönigstag, Epiphany, and the 12th day of Christmas, which signals the end of the Christmas holidays here in Germany.  Tomorrow school and work resume.  In the States, for the most part, school and work resumed on Jan. 2 - as soon after New Year's Day as possible.  Then again, the Christmas season in the U.S. started right after Thanksgiving (if not before), which was Nov. 22 this year.

On Dreikönigstag here in Germany, groups of children called Sternsinger go from house to house dressed in kingly costumes and carrying a lighted star. Our lads wore VfB Stuttgart hats instead of crowns, but we'll leave that alone. They sing a song, recite a poem about the three kings, write a blessing on the door frame, and collect a donation for a charity. This year the money raised goes to children in need in Tanzania.  People whom they visit may also give them a treat - some chocolate, candy, etc. - to give them energy to carry on through the day and evening.

The blessing they write on the door frame is (this year) 20*C+M+B+13.  Each piece of the blessing has a meaning.
  20...13 is the current year.
  The * represents the Star of Bethlehem.
  C M B stands for Christus Mansionem Benedicat** ("Christ Bless this House" in Latin)
  The three crosses represent the trinity.

**It is a common misconception that the C M B stands for the intials of the names of the three kings, which coincidentally are Casper, Melchior, and Balthazar.

The blessing stays on the door until the next Dreikönigstag, when the entire blessing is wiped off and rewritten for the new year.

After the Sternsinger leave, it's time to take down Christmas. The decorations go back into their boxes, the tree branches get cut off and placed over garden plants to protect them against the cold, the tree trunk gets chopped up and put in the garage to use for firewood in 2 years when it's dry (because nothing gets wasted or thrown out in Swabia!), and in our case the Department 56 Alpine Village houses and people get packed away until next December.

It's been a lovely first Christmas here in Bildechingen, and I'm sorry to see it go.  But now it's on to the new year and the adventures it brings!

unsere Metzgerei / our butcher

I love our local butcher. The women who work there are so friendly, and very patient with me despite the fact that I often come in with unusual requests or forget a word I need to make clear what I want.  They know me somewhat by now because I go there about 3 times per week, and sometimes I fear they're thinking, "Oh no, here comes the American again..."

For some time I've been perplexed by the size of the chickens here. They look more like hefty pidgeons, and the biggest one I can find at the grocery store feeds just Martin and me for one meal. On Monday I'm planning to cook a bird for my parents and us.  A friend told me recently, when I brought up the "tiny chicken issue," that I need to look for a Poularde (spring chicken?). Those are larger than the grocery store birds. This morning I asked the butcher if I can order a Poularde from her. She said "Für Weihnachten?" ("For Christmas?")  "Nein, für Montag" ("No, for Monday"). It turns out I can get a Poularde, but I need to order it a week in advance. It looks like I'll be roasting 2 small grocery store birds on Monday, but at least I know for next time.

There is a meat department in the big grocery store, but Martin is always more impressed with the quality of the meat I get at the local butcher. When I go there to get gemischtes Hackfleisch (mixed ground meat - pork and beef), they grind it as I wait. It doesn't get ground early in the day and then sit in a display case for hours, like in the grocery store, and it's not pre-packaged. They grind exactly as much as I want and then package it. I believe this is why, when making Maultaschen, it's ok to taste the ground meat mixture repeatedly to see if the spices are right, even though the meat is raw.

The butcher has a delicious array of sausages and cheeses for sale, Wurstsalat and other salads, marinaded or prepared meats (I could buy Schnitzel already flattened and breaded, but Martin always does that himself) and some poultry. They also have a few staples available - eggs, breadcrumbs, canned broth, etc. A bakery from the next town over delivers bread and rolls daily, and one can order a sandwich to go. They also have a daily meal special of a meat, a side dish and dessert or salad. There's one small table where one can sit and eat lunch.

So far perhaps none of that is terribly different from an American butcher. The big difference is that I rarely went to a butcher in Wisconsin. The best one I knew of near me was a 20-minute drive away in Eden, WI. I just bought packaged meat at the grocery store.  Life in the U.S. is in some ways about convenience and quickness. The meat tends to be better at a butcher, but it's more convient (not to mention cheaper) to buy everything at the same place. The same is true here, but since the butcher is so close (it's a 10-minute walk from home, or a 7-minute walk on a day as cold as today) and the meat is a finer quality, I'll happily go there several times a week even though it's an extra trip.

I should mention that the butcher at the grocery store is very friendly and helpful as well. A few weeks ago on a Wednesday Martin wanted to grill steaks, but the local butcher is closed on Wednesday afternoons.  Martin - who is German for those who don't know that - often grumbles that German butchers don't understand about grilling big steaks, because they're always cut too thinly.  I asked the butcher at the store for Rindersteaks zum Grillen, and he said those are in the pre-packaged section. He mentioned that they are "Big American Steaks," (is it SO obvious that I'm an American??) and asked if he should help me find them since he wasn't busy at the time. I said I was sure I could find them myself. I went to the beef section, walked along and browsed, but didn't see exactly what I was looking for. The butcher came over and asked if I'd found them, and I had to admit that I hadn't. He reached into the cooler and pulled out a package with a huge American flag on the label. Really? I missed that?  Good grief...  They were still not thick enough for Martin's taste, though, so there was more grumbling at home about German butchers.

One of these days he'll come with me to our local butcher and describe exactly what he wants for grilling - 4 cm thick, marbeled, and from the loin or rib. Then we'll see if they'll give it a name - "The Hejl Grill Special" or something like that - to make ordering in the future easier.

We're planning on having a 4th of July Grillfest next summer, and the butcher is either going to love us or hate us when it's time to order the meat for that. Yes, we'll be ordering a lot of meat, but we'll have very precise expectations for what we want.  At least we know to order early!

der Gemüsemann - Our Vegetable Guy

In an earlier blog I wrote about the bakery truck that stops on our street every Wednesday morning, and I also mentioned that a truck full of fruits and vegetables stops on Tuesday evenings. I had written that I don't get very excited about vegetables, but I've since changed my mind.

The vendor's name is Mustafa, and he's like our own private year-round farmer's market. He's got just about everything related to fruits and vegetables, and some unrelated - I bought a dozen eggs from him last night!

Between the bakery truck and Mustafa, this was a sampling of what I bought this week.

Lately I start my shopping list on Sunday evenings, revise it Monday, and finalize my week's meal plan on Tuesday morning so that I'm ready for Mustafa.

Last night the first thing I grabbed was a Blumenkohl (cauliflower). I set it on Mustafa's little counter and turned to look for something else, but he put the Blumenkohl back and grabbed a different one. "Dieser sieht schöner aus" ("This one looks nicer"), he said. Then I started looking through the red peppers, and he said "Rote Paprika? Warte*..." ("Red peppers? Wait...") and pulled a box out from under his shelves. The peppers in that box were much brighter than the ones on display. I feel like I've finished my probationary period, and now Mustafa will bring out the best stuff.  I bagged up a bunch of little potatoes and asked if he could weigh it for me because I needed 500 grams. He took the bag from me, and without putting it on the scale, he said "Das ist 520 gram." I just looked at him blankly, he looked back and me and said "Schau mal..." ("Watch.") and set the bag on his scale. It came to 508 grams. "Ach! I was off!" he grumbled.  Ah, so he's a showman, too!

What a schmoozer... :-)  But it's working! He makes me smile, asked me my name last week and wrote it down, is very friendly, and I'll happily keep buying from him rather than from the impersonal grocery store. I told him last night that I won't be here next Tuesday so he doesn't think I forgot him.

Just wait until summer when he has berries. I better warn him, or he won't be able to keep enough stock to get past us!


*For my German readers: Yes, Mustafa uses "du" with me. I was surprised at first, but like me, he is not a native German, and I think that "du-Sie" thing is too cumbersome for many of us. And I don't mind. If he brings vegetables practically to my door every week, he can darn well use "du" with me!

German License Plates

In the U.S., one can tell which state a car is from based on the license plate. That can make for fun "Car Bingo" games for kids on long road trips, and it provides a reason for why another driver is driving so irratically.  "Well, no wonder. He's from Illinois!"

In Germany, one can tell what city or county a car & driver are registered in based on the license plate of the car. This gives passengers, who want to distract themselves from the speed their husbands are driving, something with which to occupy their minds.  "Oh look - there's a car from Esslingen!  And there's one from our area!"

The first one, two, or three letters on a German license plate indicate where the car's home is. Typically, the larger the city, the fewer the letters. Berlin is B. Stuttgart is S (and cheeky residents like to pay extra to choose the next letters - EX, followed by several numbers). One notable exception to the "big city, one letter" theme is Hamburg, whose license plates are HH, for Hansestadt Hamburg (indicating it was in the Hanseatic League back in the Middle Ages).  Esslingen, which has a population ca. 93,000, has the code ES on its license plates, and I still get a warm fuzzy feeling everytime I see a car from there.  One gets good at figuring out what the various codes indicate.

Since we live in a very small village near a very small town, we don't get our own code. We have to go with FDS, for Freudenstadt, which is the capital of our county. That abbreviation felt a bit awkward at first, since that was the common abbreviation of a feminine product sold and advertised when I was young.  I got used to it, though, and whenever we're traveling out of area and I see an FDS license plate, I get a homey neighborly feeling.

That's Martin's license plate.  You already know what the FDS means.  The EM is for Elizabeth & Martin, and the numbers indicate our anniversary in American date format. That's supposed to help him remember each year.  The blue bit on the left has 12 yellow stars in a circle (the symbol of the European Union) on the top, and a D for Deutschland below.

Recently a decision has been made that folks living in Horb can have their own license plate code again!  Old-timers are thrilled because they can reclaim their identity and not have to ally themselves with those city folk in Freudenstadt. Newcomers can claim their allegiance to Horb and assimilate more quickly. There is much excitement about this decision, but changing to the new plates is optional.

Horb's new license plate code will be HOR.  

I think we'll stick to FDS.