Continental breakfast

We arrived mid-morning in Friedrichshafen, home to Zeppelins and only a short jaunt away from Darling Husband’s home town of Ravensburg, where a homemade cake (Käsecremekuchen) and tea (black) was waiting to greet us. Since German stores close at noon on Saturday, we figured we needed to eat quickly so we could shop for food for our Ferienwohnung (holiday flat). Relax, says my father-in-law, Kaufland is open until 10 pm tonight. And, interjects my mother-in-law, there’s another store on the other side of town that’s open all night. They seem so proud that this Americanism has come to their small town; never mind that they pointed out the folly of our ways when they visited the States for the first time 20 years ago.

So, off we went to the temple of retail, jockeying for a parking place, past the woman plying Tupperware and the towering aisles of Huggies and Pampers, finally reaching the “fresh” produce section. We are greeted by huge amounts of apples and oranges, basketball-sized heads of cabbage and leeks the size of little league baseball bats. But I am not in the least tempted by the lack of freshness; limp lettuces and tomatoes packed in plastic are testimony that this produce is anything but fresh. The same can be said of the vacuum-packed meats and little wrapped cheeses and yogurts. We do find a few attractive soy products (from Alpro), which are largely unaffected by their travels and the glaring lights due to their aseptic packaging.

Indeed, local products prove elusive; our most local purchase is not milk or produce, but a Late harvest burgundy (Spätburgunder) from Meersburg, a little town down the road graced by a lovely old castle.

We do swing by a Demeter bakery on the way out and pick up three salty pretzels and four Seelen (literally, “souls,” long wet-baked loaves garnished with coarse salt and caraway seeds). We’ll slather them in organic sweet cream butter and chocolate hazelnut spread for our Sunday breakfast.

I am always amazed at the examples of “greenness” that are widespread and acceptable in this conservative land (Southern Germany is very Catholic): Everywhere we look, we see huge barns covered in photovoltaic solar panels, green roofs crowning kindergartens, rain barrels in backyards, and grasscrete in parking lots and on the shoulders of narrow lanes. When we buy our orange juice, it comes in reusable glass bottles that we pay a deposit on, just like when I was a kid. But the temptation of inexpensive consumer goods is a strong force, and places like Kaufland are too attractive for most to resist. Come Monday, though, you will find me with my shopping bags downtown, shopping the small shops for local produce to sustain us.