Fact: Dr. Pepper tastes better in America

You might think I am crazy, but Dr. Pepper from the States tastes different than Dr. Pepper here (bottled in the UK I think).  How much different?  Enough where I found I don’t like the Dr. Pepper I found here.  And since American Dr. Pepper is my favorite soft drink, I found myself adding one more thing to the list of American products I cannot find here, or if I do find here, are different.

Here are my top food products that you people in American should not take for granted.  And I know these are all packaged goods, and I could try to make things myself, but where is the fun in that when a company already makes them good enough?

• Yummy flour tortillas: Ok, this is aimed mostly at Texas, where a good flour tortilla makes the foundation for good TexMex food.  Here – you can only find the stiff Old El Paso brand. 
• Snack Pack Pudding:  For me, I miss the basic chocolate one.  Pudding here is more mousse-like.
• Good ole butter popcorn:  Germans prefer ‘sweet’ popcorn.  Not like kettle corn (I wish), but lightly sweetened.  You can find “American butter” salty popcorn in some American sections of larger grocery stores, but this is Jolly Time popcorn, who uses the word “butter” very loosely.  You know that brand, right?  No?  Take my word for it, you don’t want to – disgusting!  At least when I go to the English movie theater, they have it done right.
• Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup – again, you can find a weird off-brand version in some American sections of grocery stores, but again, disgusting.  Lucky for me I have should enough to last me while I am here thanks to a coworker visiting Germany.
• Blueberry muffin mix: Specifically - Betty Crocker Wild Blueberry Muffin mix.  Muffins and cakes here are a bit different – they tend to be rather dense.  American cakes tend to be fluffy and, say what you will, what I prefer. 
• Cornbread mix – Anything branded “American” – like pizza, soup, etc – probably has canned corn in it.  Because us Americans LOVE OUR CORN, right?  Whatever – I do love cornbread, and they don’t sell mixes here.  And I am not sharing my stash of Jiffy Cornbread mix.  Sorry.
• Varieties of Cake mixes and frostings: If you want American cake mix here – you will find 2 flavors: Chocolate and Carrot.  Frosting?  Chocolate and Vanilla.  Where is my Cream Cheese Frosting??  Spice Cake?  Red Velvet?  Life is hard.

To combat having to “rough it” over here, we often ask our visitors to kindly bring us items we are missing.  For instance, here is the food stash my parents brought over last year (not pictured – the other non-edible products they brought too):

So what is typically in the American section of German grocery stores (those that have one) that I haven’t already mentioned??

• Carter’s American flag root beer
• Marshmallow Fluff
• Rocky Mountain American Marshmallows
• Strawberry Frosted Poptarts (a brand I actually know!)
• Barbecue Sauce
• Cheese-Whiz style cheese
• Bisquick Mix (another real brand!)
• Some strange brand of Mac & Cheese
• Hot chocolate packets
• Griffin’s pancake syrup
• Crisco shortening

Isn’t that great that those foods sum up American cuisine?  I know I always cooked every meal with each of those items, just like Germans only eat sausage and pretzels, washed down by beer.

One thing missing from my list of products I can’t find?  Oh yeah – American Dr. Pepper. Why is that??  BECAUSE I RECENTLY FOUND SOME!!! Yes – imported Dr. Pepper cans!  I have recently found two grocery stores that have this.  I have bought their stock up a few times, and Noah finds this all rather amusing.  At one point, I looked up from trying to fit as many cans in my arms as possible, to see him snapping my photo. Whatever – at least I can now scratch something off of my list!   

Let’s Go to Rewe

How would you pronounce Rewe?  Rewe is our favorite grocery store down the street, and it could be one of the most difficult German words for Americans to pronounce.   At a first glance, you might think it is ‘Roooh’, ‘Ree-vee’, ‘Ree-wee’, ‘Revi’ (this last one was us).  However once you learn that ‘W’ is pronounced like a ‘V’ and an ‘E’ is pronounced more like an ‘A’ in English, it gets a bit easier – ‘Ray-vuh’.

Anyhow, I think we are long overdue for a blog about food so today I am blogging about the grocery store.  My first attempt to blog about food turned into a four part narrative before I realized my scope was way too big.  This time we are only going to the grocery store….to the REWE!

A typical grocery store here has essentially the same offerings as an American one.  The produce, dairy, grains, and meats are the same for the most part.  Although we feel like professional shoppers now, it took us a few weeks to get there.  Our first few trips to the grocery store had us wandering the aisles aimlessly, and even when we thought we found what we wanted, we could never be sure.  We could only half translate the labels, if that.

Also, we were kind of expecting things to be different.  In light of all the similarities, there are some noticeable differences.  For one, there is more diversity in the meat section, or at least in the sausage category.  Also there is significantly less processed food – that stuff in the ‘middle’ of an American grocery store. 

Prices per unit tend seem to be about the same, except that the mass of a given item is usually less.  Perhaps this is one reason people here are not nearly as fat?  For instance, a box of cereal is only about 3 or 4 servings and a quart (liter) of milk is as big as they come.  This is probably the secondary motivation behind our adoption the European custom of going to the grocery store every other day (the first is the size of our tiny fridge and freezer).  Luckily there are 5 grocery stores within a 10 minute walk from our apartment; two of which are a Rewe.  ;)

A normal apple... small pasta sauce

Considering the similarities, it is pretty easy to cook the same things we always have.  We still have our Taco Tuesdays and often serve a quick stir-fry over Jasmine rice.  However to Julie’s dismay, cilantro (known as koriander here) is impossible to get at the local grocery stores – you must go to a large specialty department store.

Although we love to try new things, and often do, it is nice to be able to make a quick comfort meal after those long days at work.  Of course there are a few ‘American’ grocery items we find ourselves longing for.  Some of these items exist here, but they just don’t taste quite ‘right’:  steak, tortillas, corn bread, corn, chocolate syrup, Lipton chicken noodle soup (great for fighting colds), cake icing, and microwave popcorn.  Thankfully we can always find avocados so life can carry out without too much worry.  And steak made the list because the one time I cooked it here, Julie said it tasted like dog food.  Now I know there must be something special about Texas beef because certainly my culinary skills result in food better tasting than dog food.  

One of the 'European' foods we have adopted.... ; )

 

So what about those crazy Bavarians in their Lederhosen, what do they eat?  Here are some staples that make up food here in Bavaria: sausage, fresh sliced meats and cheese, fresh breads (usually very dense, whole grain/rye flavors), sausage, sliced sausage, spaetzle (egg noodles with cheese or other topping), knödel (bread or potato like dumpling, but better), sauerkraut, sausage, field greens, potatoes, different variations of pork roasts, schnitzel, mustard, did I mention sausage?, pretzels……and BEER. 

It is a lot of meat and potatoes, but I am often surprised at how different, special, and unique the flavors can be.  We have had some absolutely terrific ‘meat and potato’ dishes that I completely underestimated.  Some variation of these food staples pretty much makes up all menus at a Bavarian restaurant, although there are probably some things missing considering we are still learning ourselves.  But that is for another blog post.