Well, it's official, I'm truly on my way to becoming a Bavarian Frau (minus the cleavage that I can, unfortunately, never hope to obtain). Speaking of cleavage, when I actually bought my first dirndl last year, I was rather disgruntled. I had tried on numerous sizes and styles and wasn't getting the desired effect (cleavage-wise). In the end, I just pointed at the saleswoman’s breasts and said longingly in my worst German: " I want what you have!" Rather than being disconcerted by the fact that I was longingly looking at her chest, she understood me straight away and said: "What you need, my dear, is a dirndl bra!” and she promptly went off to find me one. The German's really do have a solution for everything - including body parts - amazing.
Anyway, putting breasts aside...
This week I donned my dirndl, jumped on my bike (I know, the stereotypical image!) and winged my way to a friend's Weißwurst-Frühstück. Normally very little can raise me from my bed at 8am on a Saturday morning, but the prospect of sausages, pretzels and beer before midday was just too tempting (and of course, spending time with some wonderful people and celebrating their university success!). Weißwurst is a different kind of sausage and actually, doesn't look that appetising - it's like an albino sausage, with its pale white skin. Actually, thinking about it, it's probably the kind of sausage I would be if I were turned into a sausage in my next life - pale...white...no matter how long I cook I never turn a shade darker...
For those that don't know, it's made of a mixture of veal and pork and is cooked in boiling water with chives. I did, however, learn that there is an art to eating it.
It's important that the sausage is kept in the boiling water until the minute you eat it - that's why it always comes in a cute little bowl. Why? So you can take the skin off of course! Unlike other sausages here in Germany, you don't eat the skin on a Weißwurst. I'm a bit disconcerted by this...what's wrong with the skin? Actually, I'm even more disconcerted by the fact that I have, before now, unknowingly eaten the skin.
Luckily I was sitting next to my friend's boyfriend Richard, a "true" Bavarian who was able to impart the all-important skin-peeling knowledge onto me. Slit it right down the middle and then peel! Sounds simple, but I promise you that I was definitely the only person fiddling with her sausage for longer than a minute (there's no innuendo-free way of saying that sentence). Maybe next time I should try the extreme, yet well-loved by the Bavarians, technique of slitting the end off and then sucking the sausage out of the skin... (I know - just when you thought the innuendos were over).
It really was a fantastic morning though. Weißbier, pretzels,Weißwurst, Obazda (a kind of spreadable cheese...it's my kryptonite) and good people - all enjoying breakfast together on a long bench. I couldn't help thinking that Britain could use more things like this. Don't get me wrong, I love drinking and dancing to celebrate as much as the next person, but there is something wonderful about spending a Saturday morning breaking bread (or rather, Breze), drinking - but not in order to get drunk, and chatting with old and new friends, rather than lying in bed hung-over from the night before.
This is part of Bavaria's heritage and I'm looking forward to making it an integral part of mine.
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