Asparagus Mania

 

We were told - and I kind of remembered - that Germany in springtime is caught in the throngs of asparagus madness.  (FYI:  when Germans say "asparagus" they always mean white.  Green asparagus is a different vegetable altogether.)

On April 19 we saw a poster in front of a restaurant announcing the arrival of the delicacy:  Spargel-Zeit ist hier!  Asparagus time is here!    When we got to the store it was already sold out, so we decided to eat our first asparagus of the season at a local restaurant in Prenzlauer Berg (where we live): the special, Asparagus with sauce Hollandaise, potatoes, smoked raw ham (similar to proscuito), and white wine.  Yum!  It tasted so good we asked for more. The waiter said he would see what he could do.  Soon the cook appeared himself and brought more.  He then told us that his asparagus comes from  "Belize, of course! Where else?"  That answer sort of confused us - considering that Belize is in the Carribbean -- but hey, it's Berlin where anything is possible.  We left the restaurants confused, but happy.

 

A few days later when I when I wanted to cook the delicacy myself  it suddenly dawned on me in the grocery store that the famous asparagus does not hail from Belize, but from Beelitz, a village or small town south east of Berlin.  Every Berliner knows that the asparagus comes from Of Course, Beelitz, Where Else?  Indeed, where else?...

 

From mid April through mid June Spargel cooking and eating becomes a national pastime. Particularly Berliners and Baderners (I'm one from Freiburg) go nuts about asparagus, probably because their areas grow more than any others in Germany.  Just about every restaurant, bistro, brunch café, and eatery has at least one dish of asparagus on their menu.  Many have pages of asparagus dishes, prepared in very different ways, some even with Schnitzel.  Restaurants lure hungry tourists with signs like this one:

 

 

 

BTW, asparagus is much more than an aphrodisiac.  Recently it was highly political:  180 kilograms of Beelitz asparagus were cooked for a luncheon of news correspondents and politicians from Berlin and the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg.  (Remember:  Berliner versus Badener Asparagus!) With all that yummy asparagus eating the politicians saw a good opportunity to present their views.  So, the Social Democrat (more like a US Democrat) said that asparagus harvesting could afford to pay minimum wage, while the Christian Democrat (more akin to a US Republican) insisted that all that paperwork would kill the small time asparagus farmers.  Most likely, no matter how good the asparagus, the opinions about whose State produces the better-tasting vegetable remain unchanged.  Badeners are convinced that THEIR asparagus from Schwetzingen in Baden trumps the Berliner Beelitz Spargel.... While the Berliners and Brandenburgers believe the THEIRS.... 

To me, they taste exactly the same... But as someone who comes from Baden, but lives in Berlin, even if for a short while only, I prefer to stay neutral...

 

But that's not enough.  Every May Beelitz has a popular Asparagus Festival in the form of a gigantic cook-out.  This year 1,500 guests registered for the event, but when 15,000 showed up the mayor and town police decided to cancel it for security reasons.  The same event is now planned in a huge park near here, with proper security preparations.  Cooks from as far as Japan, Iran, Thailand and many other countries will present their way of cooking white asparagus.  Needless to say Bill and I are tempted to try some of those recipes...

 

 

Yes, and here the best version.... home-cooked...

Vater-Tag or Fathers Day German style

 

Fathers Day in Germany comes a bit earlier than the American equivalent.  

 

While taking a bike ride out in the country yesterday Bill and I kept wondering why so many men bicyclists with their families, in groups with other men, or by themselves had flowers (mostly white, pink, and purple lilac) on their handlebars.  When we figured it out Bill put pink and purple lilacs on his handle bars --- and then made me pay for lunch... 

 

First of all, it was a general holiday where everyone had off.  Further, the Catholics and Protestants celebrated Christi Himmelfahrt, Christ's Ascension.  And because the East Germans did not like religious holidays (during Communist times) they invented Maenner-Tag, Mens-Day in English, or if you like it more genteel: The Day of and for Men. 

 

In short, men had many reasons to be happy.  Men could be men.  This they celebrated with flowers in the morning and riding bikes and motorcycles; and later on with beer, wine, food, picnics, parties, grill-outs, loud music, making good use of their day of freedom...  Like in the US Father's Day comes but once a year...

 

 Bill's bike before he beautified with lilac flowers

 

 

Chorin Cloisters, just north of Berlin which we toured on Fathers Day

 Werbellin-See, one of the hundreds of lakes in and around Berlin

 

 

 Many villages have interesting sights, some restored, but dating back centuries

 

Just a short train ride north of Berlin (45 minutes, and easily accessible to Bill on his bike) begins Germany's largest bio-sphere reservation, called Die Schorfheide, with what seems unending beech forests that alternate with pine forests, birch forests each more enchanting than the next. What is not so enchanting when riding a bike through them are the sandy paths where one has to get off the bike in order to not get stuck in the sand...  But the wary biker gets rewarded when one sees the views that lie ahead.  Ever so often the forests open up to medieval villages surrounded by huge fields and meadows with grazing cattle. Or the paths lead along tiny lakes. The sky looks huge. One gets the feeling that time stands still.  Except for the constant bird songs that are quite different in forests and meadows there's total quiet.  In spring with all the blooming trees and bushes one feels like the world was just created. We take deep breaths to take in the scented and aromatic air and sit down to eat our sandwich and listen to the peace.  Bill and I never thought we would so much enjoy this countryside --- it looks so flat and boring on the map.      

 

 



70th End of World War II in Berlin

All of you who are Bill's and my generation remember pictures like these of Berlin and other German cities with populations over 200,000, showing what Germany looked like in 1945.  In Berlin the destruction was so total and extensive (I'm guessing in size comparable to the area from Fairfax City to DC's Kennedy Stadium) that representatives of the Allied powers who first saw Berlin believed it would never recover.  70 years later the scorched areas have been rebuilt, even if not all scars are gone.

 

Besides rebuilding the cities, Berlin and the united Germany have also been hard at work trying to mend some of the invisible wounds from its wartime and Nazi past. Serious integration efforts have been made to reach out to religious and ethnic minorities, synagogues, churches and mosques. Many political refugees and desperate immigrants get asylum plus shelter, health care, and education, and eventually jobs.  Housing is a major issue considering that Germany has 80million people living in an area the size of Texas; yet all communities are expected to take in refugees. Berlin with its already existing lack of sufficient affordable housing has particularly severe problems finding places for all its newcomers. Nevertheless, this approach seems to work in most cities and villages; unfortunately, not in all.  There are a few pockets, usually areas with high unemployment, where a tiny minority of the local inhabitants lead active hate campaigns against immigrants. In one of the poorer Berlin suburbs, for example, public housing for immigrants that was under construction was willfully set on fire.  The great majority of Germans do not support such activities, but any undemocratic behavior gets a lot more media coverage than the mostly successful integration efforts.  

As a consequence of its policies, Germany has become a very active immigration country, taking in many people from many different countries, including Syria. Berlin has grown to the second largest Turkish city next to Istanbul.  Many Russian Jews have moved to Berlin to live here.  In the past two years many Gypsies have made Berlin their mainstay.  

Of course, then there are the many newcomers from the European Union and from all over the world who are attracted to Berlin for its innovative and creative economy.  Some come for a little while only.  Many more like its start-up and can-do philosophy so much that they stay for good.

 

 

 

 

May Day 2015

Today is International Labor Day in Europe, an official holiday for workers. Traditionally, marches, demonstrations, speeches (sometimes violent) were held on behalf of better pay and labor conditions  --- today it seemed more like a festival for tourists than for workers and trade unionists.  We strolled to the Brandenburg Gate where the Labor Unions ended their march and where we listened to one of the speeches that supported the newly won German minimum wage legislation (Mindestlohn)($8.50/hour), and that demanded support for similar wage conditions in low-wage countries worldwide plus more immigration of foreigners into Germany.

 

 

Later, along with demonstrators and tourists, we enjoyed the weather, the band music, the sights.  

 

 

Not far from the Brandenburg Gate is the Hotel Adlon which was destroyed at the end of World War II.  At that time it was a hospital for the wounded who had to be brought out on the street.  These days photos from that time are on show in front of the hotel.

After the war The Adlon was rebuilt to its former glory.  Some day Senta, Hannelore and I want to have coffee and cake in its posh café.

 

 

In anticipation of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II  photos are stationed near the Brandenburg Gate.  This one of a soldier's grave and youths at one of the Berlin lakes.

 

 

There is construction just about everywhere in Berlin.  The city's main street Unter den Linden is no exception.  It's not enough that a subway from the eastern part of Berlin to the main train station is in the process of being built under it, but many buildings lining this avenue, such as the Opera House, the Opera Palais restaurant (where Senta and Stefan celebrated their wedding), the State Library, several private buildings and museums are being restored at the same time.  Plus the castle (Schloss), completely destroyed in WWII, (rebuilt as a modern Volks-Palast (The People's Palace) during Communist times, then demolished after reunification)  is being built from scratch to look like the castle it once was. Similar to DC, Berlin has been built on swamps and sand which means that every building has to be waterproofed from underneath and all around it - a gigantic undertaking.  No wonder Unter den Linden has been partially closed for years, and the cranes, trucks, pipes have become a way of life for Berliners and tourists alike. 

 

On this glorious spring day Berlin showed itself from its best side making the mood even more festive for everyone to enjoy the sights.

 

 

  The Opera House

Das Schloss (castle)

 The Pergamon Museum

  Altes Museum
Can you see the square dots on the columns? They are filled-in bullet holes, remnants from World War II:  (Construction complete)

  The river Spree flows divided around the Museum Island.  Yes, these popular tourist sights are standing on sand and are completely surrounded by water.  As any home inspector would tell you:  they ought to be condemned......  oops, better forget being a real estate agent...

  Is he pointing to the TV Tower or to the ad for the Apple Iphone 6?  Could there be a better summary of the modern world than the realities we see in this photo?  Berlin no longer a factory town that employs manual labor, but a city teeming with upstart companies, founded by youngsters from all over the world.

 

  And this guy is heading home, happy after an interesting day. 

 

On the news tonight we saw that the under 35 crowd, 45,000 strong, is dancing in the streets of Kreuzberg ---- one of Berlin's Labor Day "demonstrations".  To these youngsters it is My-Day, not May-Day....