It's All About the Food

Postcard from Darmstadt

This month I visited the motherland, Germany.* The trip started in Darmstadt, a city about half an hour from Frankfurt, Germany's financial center (and the center of most air routes for the German airline Lufthansa). This trip, like all others was as much about the food as it was about the friends and family — if only because everyone kept inviting us to eat.

Of course the food starts before you even get to the airport, especially when traveling with a preschooler. What kind of snacks should I take? What can I get through security? What are the chances he'll eat the airplane food? The flight was scheduled to take off at 6 p.m., but hadn't even started boarding by then. Dinner wasn't served until 9. Thankfully, the packed snacks held us both over — and became my son's dinner:

• three serving-size bags of hard pretzels,
• two apples,
• a sippy cup, with the lid in one bag and the cup in a second (no chances with someone misinterpreting that three-ounce rule)

So, yes, my son had pretzels and an apple for dinner that night. Once in the lounge area, I filled the cup with water for us, and the flight crew was happy to pour apple juice into the cup (with fewer worries for me about spilled juice).

I too, was tempted to turn up my nose at the airplane food. The food is actually one reason we fly Lufthansa. It's usually OK, and better than USAir. Lufthansa has fallen off though, with food you would find in an employee cafeteria, and much worse than Air France two years ago. (The horror of Charles DeGaulle Airport will keep me from flying Air France, though.)

The entrees were a choice between typical bow ties with jarred red sauce and something with rice pilaf (it was utterly forgettable). This was accompanied by a tired cesar salad, tiramisu, a roll with Land O'Lakes butter and a piece of colby cheese (orange). My mother's retirement home has better food. Alright, they also have a real kitchen, but I've had goose with red cabbage on Lufthansa flights. At least the coffee is still German.

Breakfast was equally disappointing: a granola bar, monterey jack cheese, a roll with American butter. No yogurt or fruit, but again, German coffee. On the way out, a steward gave my son an extra breakfast from first class. A better, softer granola bar, a banana, yogurt (American and low fat, of course), a cheese sandwich on whole wheat.

After finding our luggage, finding the bathrooms, finding our friend, the car rental counter, the Autobahn and finally the hotel (with parking!), we found ourselves in downtown Darmstadt looking for lunch. (First I got Euros and holy cow! have you seen how the dollar has tanked?)

We (Tobi) chose the Nachtrichtung Treffe Cafe in the center of town, on the recommendation of his friends who swore up and down that lunches were good, he would like them. NT is a typical German restaurant with bar. Unlike America, customers often seat themselves, or select from multiple choices offered by the staff. We three sat at a table for eight where another man was already reading the newspaper. During peak hours, it's encouraged that smaller groups share larger tables.

I should make clear that although I was in Germany from early to mid-October, I had missed Oktoberfest, which occurs in late September and in Munich, an altogether different part of the country. But, I was in time for the new wine, when restaurants and bars serve glasses of newly-pressed wine that's just begun to ferment. It's yeasty and sweet, nothing like an aged wine at all. A Federweisser is light and fruity, a good drink on a cool fall day, when you want to spend a few hours in Gemütlichkeit with close friend and family, or the stranger at the other end of the table. The traditional accompaniment is Zwiebelkuchen, onion tart, something I've avoided since childhood. I'm sure it's lovely, if you like onions.

That afternoon we wandered through the center of Darmstadt and found a small farming festival in one of the city squares. Tractors! Produce! Animals! Honey! For dinner, I picked up some tomatoes and apples at a fruit stand, and a pretzel and a roll at a bakery. Germany is great for out-of-hand meals that can be eaten in a hotel room with only a mini-fridge. Bakeries carry rolls of all types (most carry sandwiches), butchers offer lots of dried sausages like Landjäger and apples are always in season.

* Germany is where my mother's parents immigrated from. For me, the Fatherland is either Philadelphia or Kentucky.