Tuesday Is Recycling Day

"And Now, Once Again, a Message from Chez's Evil Twin Garth" (Originally Published, 6.13.07)

So, I had German food last night.

Yeah -- little place over on 2nd called Heidelberg or Hindenberg or Hindenbrau or Unibrau or some shit like that. Needless to say, it's still sitting at the bottom of my stomach like a Volkswagen-sized tumor.

Seriously, Germany, what the fuck is up with you people?

Last week I was reading an article in Time magazine that profiled what families in different countries spend on food in a week. Needless to say, the Germans spent the most: an average of about 500 bucks. The magazine showed a picture of one German family standing proudly -- or is it angrily, who the hell can ever tell? -- behind a table that looked like it was about to collapse under the weight of all the shit these four people eat in one seven-day period.

This was a family that obviously learned nothing from the sacrifice of its legendary porcine countryman, Augustus Gloop.

Oh, and just to add a nice little ironic exclamation point by the way -- the very next page of the Time article featured a picture of a family from Chad that spends $1.23 a week on Red Cross grain.

But it's not so much the amount of food these fuckers eat as it is the kind of food.

Look, I like hot dogs and beer as much as the next guy who has no problem with the idea of dying of a heart-attack at sixteen, but I'm not kidding -- everything on the menu at this place last night was some slight variation on the same three or four artery-clogging ingredients. It was like eating at Taco Bell -- only the guys serving you were wearing Leiderhosen and an apoplectic Lou Dobbs wasn't standing right outside the front door muttering something about "infestation."

There was bratwurst and knockwurst and liverwurst; (A good rule of thumb, by the way: Never eat anything that actually has the word "worst" right in the name); there was schnitzel of every shape and size; there was beer being sold in giant glass boots; there were huge people wolfing down appetizers of cheese-coated cheese in zesty cheese sauce; there was an aggregate cholesterol number larger than the GNP of Germany itself.

And although it's certainly the kind of experience that can be tolerated in small doses, something dawned on me while I was sitting there in that restaurant, trying to inconspicuously scan the walls for the portable defibrilator: There's no such fucking thing as "gourmet" German food. Germans don't have "cuisine" -- they just fucking eat. No sublety to be found here, folks.

You're never gonna see an Iron Chef Germany. ("Yess, und diis I made mit de zaurkraut unt de wurst to breeng out de flavor off de zeecret ingreedient -- sea urchin. FUCK YOU, BOBBY FLAY!! SCHVEIN UNT DIE SCHLAUS LIEBRING VEISEL!!!! ZEEG HEIL!!! ZEEG HEIL!!!")

Like some bizarre Nazi genetic experiment fusing Julia Child and Dr. Strangelove.

Which reminds me: How the hell did Hitler eat this crap every night and keep a straight face when he claimed that Germans were the master race?

Maybe that's why he invaded France -- to get better food.

Course that still doesn't explain Poland.

(As always, the views and opinions of Garth do not necessarily reflect those of Chez, who has no beef with the German people and who, during his lifetime, has owned both a BMW and an Audi and can say without fear of contradiction that not only do Germans know how to forcibly annex other countries -- they build damn good cars.)