Türkischen Essen

In the summer of 2008 I traveled alone to Germany, mooching some of my dad's old frequent flier miles on the verge of expiration. I was lucky enough to have a local guide in Aachen, a city in northern Germany less than an hour from Maastricht in the Netherlands. (And I love the sound of the word. Aachen.) This guide is the same au pair I keep mentioning. Birgit.

At the time, she introduced me to a fair amount of food I did not realize was quintessentially German. The Kultur articles had the virtue of making that explicit for me.

We spent a weekend in Paris and Chartres, where I learned the wonders of the European McDonald's. While I generally prefer sampling local cuisine rather than sticking to international chain restaurants, it is 100% worth experiencing how much better McDonald's is in Europa. (That, and how much space is at a premium. It is cheaper to build upward than outward. Two of us JUST barely fit into the elevator at our hotel, perched conveniently atop the aforementioned McDonald's.)



Birgits Mann, Serdar, ist Türkischer. On one of my first evenings in Aachen, Birgit took me to ein Imbiss to try a Döner.

Put it this way - I am not in a position to appreciate decent meat. Ich habe zu Hause nur eine Tüte gefrorene (frozen) Händchenbrust von bevor das Semester began. Ich liebe Gemüse. But I do appreciate good food, thanks to mein Papa und Ann Arbor. (In Ann Arbor wohne ich, und ich esse, wie in Ann Arbor wohne ich.) So, even having zero history of lamb consumption, I would venture to say the Döner was pretty good. Definitely weniger beängstigend (less scary) als amerikanischen Fast-Food. Pretty nice spices. And spectacle goes with it - the servers slice it off a giant vertical skewer mit sehr langen Messer (knives). I ate it mit Salat komplett, natürlich.

Und dann... dann gibt es Ayran. Der Joghurt mixed mit Wasser. It is hugely popular in Turkey. Pretty sure I made it about a third of the way through the bottle before giving up.



It is probably an acquired taste.