Clare B. Dunkle's Blog, page 9

Consuming Christmas

Maybe because it comes along during the longest nights of the year, or maybe just because Germans seem to love a good celebration, Christmas is a very big deal in Germany. From what I've gathered in my time here, this is less the Bible's Christmas and more Charles Dickens' Christmas: a time to gather with family and loved ones, give friends a thoughtful gift, raise a glass, and say "God bless us every one!" As Marley's ghost would say, mankind is its business. It's a holiday about togetherness.

Togetherness means food and drink. It means decorating the house for guests. It means selecting a box of chocolates for the coworkers. And German stores reflect that. Since Germans traditionally bring a small gift whenever they're invited to a party, Christmastime or not, stores offer small fruit baskets, and supermarket ads include deals on wine. A good bottle of wine is always a welcome "hostess" gift. Florists create centerpieces for party hosts to buy and floral arrangements for guests to bring.

Thankfully, the corny, cartoony sorts of Christmas displays haven't caught on here. Even the supermarket decorations are more dignified than ours back in the States. And whereas we go crazy setting up our front yards and stringing our Christmas lights, I haven't seen too much of that here. I may see a candle display in a window or a fir tree lit up in the yard, but there's no conga line of dancing polar bears across the front lawn. Back home, stores devote lots of space to exterior lighted displays. Here, the emphasis is on tasteful interior decor for party guests to enjoy.

Unlike our holiday candies, which largely seem to be designed for a child's stocking or quiet consumption in the privacy of our own homes, a large share of the German candies are clearly intended to be gifts for other discerning adults.

And of course, there are baking displays dedicated to creating holiday desserts.

A number of the treats are available just at Christmas. They'll go away again until the winter months next year.

To read my latest blog posts, please click on the "Green and Pleasant Land" logo at the top of this page. Photos taken in December, 2011, in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Text and photos copyright Clare B. Dunkle.

der Tresor

The other day, as I was idly looking through house rental listings, I came across this statement: Ein Tresor ist vorhanden. What is vorhanden — available? Treasure?!

I've always loved the word Tresor because it sounds so exciting and important, and it isn't far off from what it sounds like, either. Der Tresor isn't treasure, but it's a treasure chest. In other words, der Tresor is a safe.

Reminiscent Only of Itself

If this blog seems cathedral-heavy, that's because I love cathedrals. Stunningly beautiful even in our day, cathedrals represented heroic effort and almost miraculous achievement in their day. Each one is unique. They're not just buildings; they're audacity and imagination in stone.

Recently, Joe and I visited Limburg Cathedral, or Limburger Dom, in Limburg an der Lahn. Although I've seen the great high-Gothic cathedrals of France, this is my favorite cathedral so far. It's more approachable, for one thing: it's less than half the length of Notre Dame in Paris. For another thing, its construction took place quickly, the bulk from 1190 to 1235. Thus, it's one consistent design instead of a mishmash of conflicting fashions.

Limburg Cathedral can be called late Romanesque or early Gothic. I think it marries the most beautiful elements of both, so it's a shame that our architectural guides relegate it to a transitional stage on the way to something else. As a 1905 treatise states, it "stands supreme in its class. … In short, it is reminiscent only of itself." So perhaps we should simply call it Limburger architecture.

We see here the wonderful arcades that are so important in Romanesque architecture, but the cathedral springs upward with a grace and lightness that only Gothic churches have, its heavy piers lightened by colorful frescoes and hidden behind clusters of thin columns that emphasize verticality. If it lacks the high-Gothic stained glass, it makes up for that with delicate stonework and harmonious design.

The vaulting in the nave must have represented real daring. Architects at this time were attempting to carry cathedral roofs without the massive Romanesque pillars and heavy barrel vaults. But they didn't fully understand the forces they were dealing with. Sometimes cathedral roofs came crashing down.

Much of the charm of Limburg Cathedral lies in its colorful paint and medieval frescoes. The frescoes were damaged during the Thirty Years' War, painted over by Baroque artists, and restored inexactly in the 1800′s. But a recent and very careful twenty-five-year renovation has brought this cathedral back to its full beauty. I'm looking forward to visiting it again.

Miltoun, Francis. The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine. Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1905. Project Gutenberg EBook #31936.

To read my latest blog posts, please click on the "Green and Pleasant Land" logo at the top of this page. Photos taken in December, 2011, in Limburg an der Lahn, Germany. Text copyright Clare B. Dunkle. Photos copyright 2011 by Joseph R. Dunkle and Clare Dunkle.

der Radiosender

German dictionaries list tons of words for "radio station." But thanks to a conversation with Rainer and Heidi last night, I now know that der Radiosender is the common word to use around here when you're talking about your favorite station.

Die Beiden Schwestern

While flipping through the Wilhelm Busch storybook Heidi loaned me, I came across this illustration, and I think we all know what's going on here. (See my earlier post about this literary star whose stories paved the way for the comic book.)

The frog is saying,

"Erbarme dich, erbarme dich,

Ach, küsse und umarme mich!"

"Have mercy, have mercy, oh, kiss and hug me!"

This line might not work on everybody, but Kätchen is a softhearted girl. She kisses him, and he changes:

And before another panel has passed, Kätchen has the prince, the castle, and her happy-ever-after.

So far, so good. This is a short version of the classic Frog Prince (Froschprinz) story, as told by the Brothers Grimm. But Wilhelm Busch's tale is called "Die beiden Schwestern" — "The Two Sisters." And this is where the retelling takes an interesting turn.

Kätchen has a sister, Adelheid, who is lazy and vain. While Kätchen works, Adelheid lolls around in fine clothes. So we have here the classic good sister-bad sister setup.

Sure enough, Adelheid goes walking by the water next and meets a handsome stranger. His pickup line is rather more aggressive:

"Ich liebe dich, bin treu gesinnt,

Komm, küsse mich, du hübsches Kind!"

"I love you, I'm not kidding. Come, kiss me, you cutie!"

This is a line that shouldn't work on anybody! But Adelheid feels that they have a lot in common: they both love Adelheid. So she kisses him.

And he changes into the Wasserneck, a water-god or water creature. (I love the fish-lyre.)

Because she's kissed him, she now belongs to him.

So Adelheid has to stay with the Wasserneck, whom Busch nicknames Wassernickel. He's a fat old fish, and she has to pat his Glatze (chrome dome).

I've read about a planned capture like this, but only in an Irish folktale, and even then, the girl got away when she noticed seaweed in the water god's hair and sang to him till he fell asleep. So this is a wonderful blend of three different folktale traditions, spiced with Busch's own unique sense of humor.

To read my latest blog posts, please click on the "Green and Pleasant Land" logo at the top of this page. Photos taken in December, 2011, in Rodenbach, Germany. Text copyright Clare B. Dunkle. Photos are not subject to copyright as they are faithful reproductions of old, public domain, two-dimensional works of art.

haltbar

The other day, Joe picked up a container of milk and wanted to know what haltbar meant. Because of how it's used on the milk container — mindestens haltbar bis — he thought it might mean "fresh." But it doesn't. The German suffix, -bar, attaches to verbs and generally means "able to be [fill in the blank with your verb]ed." Thus, when you reach a German's voicemail, the automatic recording tells you that the person you're calling is nicht erreichbar — unable to be reached. A German warning label might say, "Achtung! Brennbar!" — "Warning! Flammable!" And a German friend might say that a song is tanzbar — able be danced to. (Offenbar throws us a slight curve, though — it means something is obvious.)

So back to Joe's question about mindestens haltbar bis. It means the milk is haltbar able to be held mindestens at least bis until the date printed on the carton.

Winter Begins

In one of my happiest childhood memories, it is nighttime in north Texas, and I am standing with my brother Anthony in the middle of the street in the thickest snowfall I have ever seen. Enormous, fluffy flakes, pink in the light from the sodium vapor streetlamp, are drifting down in their own good time. They're so big that they hit with audible little cracks and stick like pancakes to our jackets and the street. As Anthony and I stand there in the midst of all that beauty, with awe and wonder in our hearts, we know beyond any doubt that this gift from heaven is going to close down school in the morning.

Small wonder, then, that this Texas kid still finds snow to be the truest form of magic.

I haven't seen snow in five years. But yesterday, we woke up to find a thin sheet of white on the ground. It quickly melted, but this morning it was back again–and still falling. So I put on my galoshes and coat and went out to play in the snow. And I wasn't the only one. This part of Germany doesn't get heavy snowfall, so lots of people were out with their dogs or out with their friends, laughing and talking and enjoying the holiday weather.

Snow makes familiar sights new. Take this backyard sculpture, which is a favorite of mine: I think he looks very dignified with his mask of snow.

I thought the red berries were pretty in the snow, but others weren't so pleased with the change.

The thrushes were trying to eat the berries without getting dumped on. One thrush had developed a system that rendered him impossible to photograph: he would fly in, grab a berry, and flutter away in a furious hurry to beat the snow sliding off the branches.

After a while, my fingers got too cold to work the camera, which is why the thrush is a little blurry. So I came home to a hot cup of fruit tea with honey, homemade gingerbread hearts, and my German Advent wreath.

I hope you have a magical holiday too.

To read my latest blog posts, please click on the "Green and Pleasant Land" logo at the top of this page. Photos taken in December, 2011, in Rodenbach, Germany. Text and photos copyright 2011 by Clare B. Dunkle.

die Vorsicht

A couple of weeks ago, we learned what German lumberjacks say, but what about German stores or restaurants that need to warn patrons about hazards like low ceilings? The polite word of warning in these situations is "Vorsicht!" From vor (ahead) and die Sicht (sight), die Vorsicht means foresight, caution, or prudence. In the photo above, it means to be prudent enough not to bash your head into a beam put in place in the 1600s. Our ancestors were little people!

'Tis the Season

Ask someone to give you a one-word description of a German Christmas market, and that word will probably be "Glühwein." You'll find this hot spiced wine drink, pronounced "glue-vine," wherever people are outdoors in the cold. At French markets, look for vin chaud, hot wine. The bottle pictured above is the Scandinavian version.

What does Glühwein mean? That's easy. Wein is "wine," and the Glüh- part means "glowing." Drink a mugful, and you'll be glowing too.

Newcomers to Christmas markets drink the standard bottled Glühwein in the standard dark purply-brown returnable Glühwein mugs. Myself, I think that stuff is awful, so I look for booths that are opening regular bottles of wine and putting in their own spices.

Or I look for an opportunity like this one, in old-town Limburg an der Lahn: a romantic candlelit stairway leading down into a wine cellar built in 1567, with a sign outside promising "Feine hausgemachte Glühwein." I didn't need a degree in German to realize that this meant a mug of fine house-made (homemade) Glühwein was waiting downstairs. And what a mug! The wine was steaming, the rim was dipped in sugar, and the massive wine barrels lurking in the darkness around me were older than my hometown back in Texas.

If you can't get to a Christmas market this year, here's a great Glühwein recipe you can try at home.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." We all know the song, but how many Americans have actually eaten a chestnut? Not this one until I got to Europe. Thanks to a deadly blight, our American chestnut trees got wiped out by the billions during the early twentieth century, so we've largely missed out on this Christmastime goody. Roasted chestnuts come in an easy-to-peel shell and taste sweet and mealy, almost like smoky sweet potato.

At European Christmas markets, you can buy a paper cone of hot chestnuts at little charcoal burners disguised as locomotives. Look for Marrons, Maroni, or Maronen on signs to guide you to the chestnut vendors–or just look for the bags of glossy brown nuts!

To read my latest blog posts, please click on the "Green and Pleasant Land" logo at the top of this page. Photos taken in November, 2011, in Strasbourg, France, and December, 2011, in Rodenbach and Limburg an der Lahn, Germany. Text and photos copyright 2011 by Clare B. Dunkle and Joseph R. Dunkle.

der Brotaufstrich

Last night, as I was wandering through my local German grocery store, looking for interesting products to try, I came across Thunfisch Brotaufstrich. What is that? Let's break it down. Der Thunfisch is pretty self-explanatory: it's tuna. Das Brot is bread. Der Strich is a streak, line, dash, or coating, from streichen, which means to make a single straight stroke across something and therefore can either mean to erase, scrape, scrub, spread, or coat. Auf, of course, means onto.

So Thunfisch Brotaufstrich means tuna that you spread onto bread. I left that one on the shelf!