When I saw these alphabet cookies in the supermarket, I was sure I had found the German answer to animal crackers. Cute packaging, vaguely educational value, sugar content - check. Sadly, Russisch Brot are more cracker than cookie and more
tasteless than anything else. Any
questions about their mysteriously opaque Russian origins – they’re called “Russian Bread” in German for those of you without Google Translator doing your
thinking for you - are answered
with your first taste, because nobody knows how to screw up chocolate like the
Russians. The only reason I
can possible think that cocoa has been added (and it's there in the ingredients) is to give the
cookies that dark brown edible-side-of-burnt colour, the origin of which has been gratifyingly misidentified by Chowhound snobs waxing nostalgic for Europe.
Speaking of origins, they're murky, and nobody knows who gave them the Russian name. There are competing versions giving credit to witty Viennese and travelling Dresdners bringing a taste of the motherland to the German speaking world. The ungrammaticalness of the name (because in German, adjectives always have special endings depending on the case and gender of the noun they describe, which "Russisch" has brazenly forgone) is yet further proof that they were brought to Germany by someone without enough German to pass a citizenship exam. I can certainly think of a few Katarinas and Natalias who are currently evangelizing this particular brand of German grammar. However, the
cookies that I bought at my local supermarket have been otherwise thoroughly naturalized
– no backwards Rs or upside-down Ls here.
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