All I Could Want

I once saw an article about what families around the world spend on food. In the article was shown photos of families from the places where they took their survey and showed the families with the food they would normally buy for one month and I was not surprised in the least that the German family that was shown had in their photo a whole lot of dairy products.

I have no scientific proof of this but based upon what I personally know of the eating habits of Germans and judging by what sorts of things are on sale in their supermarkets, Germans are some dairy product eating fools. When I lived in the US I used to shop in a pretty big chain supermarket and the dairy section of the supermarket I shop with in Germany puts their US brothers to shame. You know how in the US there are dozens of different types and brands of breakfast cereals? Think of the same happening in Germany except replace "breakfast cereal" with "dairy products". It goes beyond just milk, cream, cheese (of which there are dozens of varieties and brands) and butter. There's Germany love affair with pudding. My supermarket sells at least five different brands of ready-to-eat pudding that I know of and then each brand has a wide variety of styles and flavors. Then there's quark - both flavored and unflavored. Milk rice. Mousse. Flavored milks. Flavored whey drinks. Sour cream. Smetana. Crème fraîche.

And then there's yogurt. I love yogurt and have eaten it daily since I was a teenager. During the first week I moved to Germany I asked my now MIL to buy me some yogurt. Since I wasn't specific with what I wanted (I was just thinking she's bring home a couple cups of peach or strawberry fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt), she came in with a sack full. Once I went to the supermarket myself I could see why she came home with so much. The supermarket where I shop has two aisles about twelve feet long each devoted to yogurt only. There's plain, fruit-on-the-bottom, fruit puree on the top, lowfat, regular fat, Rahmjoghurt (literally "cream yogurt") that has 10% fat, Greek style (fabulously creamy!), yogurt with fruit, candy or cereal on the side to stir in, and yogurts that are dessert style that have bits of cake in them. There's strawberry, honey, vanilla, chocolate chip, pear, apricot, peach, kiwi, raspberry, banana, blueberry, lemon, hazelnut, rhubarb, orange, blackberry, plum, and lime flavors - and likely more that I can't even think of. There's yogurt that will help you out if you're constipated and some of it has grain in it so that if the bacteria doesn't help move you, the fiber will.

It's a good thing I married a German so I could live where a food I love is so popular. I'd be sorta screwed if I fell in love with a Frenchman or an Italian. I don't do cheese and wine very well.