Wirklich? Really?: Smells like New Zealand

The snow has recently turned to rain here in Stuttgart, which means streetcars are running on time, the ponds are thawing, and the shops are full of wet people who smell like laundry detergent.

I'm not saying that this is a German-only thing.  I'm sure that to Europeans travelling to rainy Vancouver, Canadians reek of Downy.  It's just that European laundry detergent smells different.  Whether you pick ocean spray or fresh breeze, it's heavy, musty, earthy, and it permeates all fabrics.  Lean in to speak to a waiter or inch too close to the person next to you in line, and you get a deep whiff of what smells like men's cologne of the cheapest variety.

Why does this smell good to a German?  Let's answer this by looking at what Germans think another country smells like - New Zealand.  Not just Febreze, but also Mr. Clean are now available in New Zealand-scented products.  Actually, the description of this scent on the Febreze website reads like a wine review: white fruits, red fruits, green notes.  This scent, according to the website, brings the rainforest to you.  Herein lies the problem.

Stuttgart has a really good zoo, the Wilhelma, which was originally a pleasure garden for the prince of the region, stocked with animals from across the Württembergish empire - which means lots of chickens - and beyond, which means polar bears and parrots and everything in between.  One of the most interesting parts is the greenhouses, which includes tropical crops like cacao, coffee, cinnamon, and jojoba.  It's amazing to see these staples of my pantry in their raw state in something like their exotic home environment.  It's not so amazing to be stuck in the suffocating damp heat of a rainforest for more than ten minutes.  It's a scent experience I would describe as overwhelming rather than refreshing.  Overwhelming is also the word I would use to describe the smell of German cleaning products.

Mystery solved.  At least partially; I also think that the fact that many Germans use high-efficiency washing machines means that their detergent doesn't get rinsed out well enough, making the scent even stronger than intended by whoever's testing this stuff on monkeys somewhere.  My tiny washing machine uses such little water that it takes over two hours to wash an armful of clothing, and you can be sure that if I dumped the recommended amount of detergent in with my clothes, I would smell like a rainforest as well.  In fact, if I had been using the recommended amount for the last year, I would probably be used to it by now.  I might even like it.

Wirklich? Really?: Quicky Car

Three flavours of ice cream, a thousand possible punchlines.

Geschmack: das Fasnetsküchle

Another German holiday, another addictive baked good.  The Fasnetsküchle is the official pastry of Mardi Gras in South Germany, which is called Fasnet in Swabian dialect or Fastnacht if you're a consonant-conscious member of the language police.  Fasting is part of the post-Mardi Gras tradition (which, for those of you who didn't go to Catholic school, is the pleasure-denying month of Lent), so by way of preparation in the days before Lent, you are free to stuff yourself with as many Fastnetsküchle as possible.

And stuff yourself you will.  The Fasnetsküchle itself is a rectangular-shaped Dutchie donut that would melt the heart of any Krispy Kreme lover.  Covered with granulated sugar, it is soft, light, and delicious.  Due to its ingenious no-hole design, one 'küchle is probably equivalent to at least two normal donuts.  Leading up to Fasnet, which is only one week away, they are being sold in local bakeries as three for less than 2 Euros.  I am seriously overdue for some fasting.

In fact, I'm pretty excited for this whole Fasnet thing, which is a week-long affair that spreads from Schmotziger Donnerstag to Ash Wednesday.  Forget Fat Tuesday, I'm looking forward to Fat Thursday.  I thought that this Schmotziger Donnerstag had something to do with spring cleaning, as schmutzig means dirty, but apparently that one little vowel makes all the difference and "schmotz" has something to do with baking and fat.  It's a Swabian thing.

According to the banner that has been hanging over the pedestrian zone in Bad Cannstatt here in Stuttgart for the last three weeks, Schmotziger Donnerstag is a mess of parades, charades, races, masks and bizarre medieval traditions that involve cabbages and nightgowns.  Bring on the mummery.

image via cafe-baecker-meyer.de

Geschmack: der Kochbeutelreis

Cooking rice in Germany takes some trial and error.  At first, at the supermarket, dictionary in hand, everything seems normal.  Langkornreis, check.  Milchreis - a little weird, but alright.  Sure, it's not basmati rice, and the serving size seems to indicate that Germans eat rice maximum once per month, but the pictures on the boxes seem pretty normal, and how wrong can you go with rice? But, once you've passed the cash register and hauled it all home, you may find yourself with an open box and some bewildering contents.  In most cases, four little plastic perforated baggies, with the rice neatly encased inside them.  This, my friends, is Kochbeutelreis.

Never mind that the serving size within these baggies seems to indicate that Germans use Amnesty International's recommendations for starving children to calculate the size of rice dishes, these cooking bags are strange.  When I opened my first box of rice packed with Kochbeutel, or cooking baggies, I, naturally, googled to see if I could cook the rice normally, without the cumbersome bag.  Germans, it seems, have the opposite question, because the answers I found on the internet were to the honest question, is it possible to cook rice without a Kochbeutel? At last, another cultural paradigm shift.

Of course, the answer is yes.  Inside the perforated bag is rice, plain and simple.  But, why do Germans do this?  Why cook your rice inside plastic that you then have to cut your food out of in order to serve?  What is the benefit to Kochbeutelreis?  Apparently, the rice burns less often, because you can cook it in a large pot of water rather than matching the water level to the exact amount of rice that you are cooking, a calculation that, if you're distracted by kitchen cleanup or the latest Tatort, leads so often to disaster.  Secondly, the Kochbeutel is there all the better to trap the wonderful vitamins in rice inside the mesh and ensure they are not thrown out with the bathwater.  Of course, if you are cooking rice the normal way, there is no bathwater to speak of, as it is sucked into the rice anyway.  I'm sure that, if the Germans insist on doing it, there must be better reasons.

To add to the riddle, be aware that while not all rice is Kochbeutelreis, any rice can be packaged neatly in Kochbeutel.  It's not always clear what you're getting, either.  A wrong turn, of course, is not the end of the world.  All you have to do is snip the rice out of the little baggies, or try your hand at rice cookery, German style.