kleine Imbisse

(meaning "little snacks.")

i've just returned from a family visit in Germany, where the asparagus & strawberries are in season. no photos of asparagus, but the first photo shows the berries...so luscious. so sweet. so addictive.
next photo: this night shot is of the excellent late-night snack o' choice of drunk (okay, sober too) Germans all over. it's called currywurst, which is basically sausage covered in some kind of curry ketchup and eaten with a hard roll. this is from an infamous Imbiss shack called "The Curry Sau" (curry pig). it's right down the street from the father-in-law's medical office; he regularly finds the remains of currywurst trash in the mailbox meant for pathology drop-offs. after we took this photo we staged a whole photo essay of the husband pretending to stuff our trash in his dad's mailbox. no one questioned us; i guess the sight of people giggling hysterically while taking nefarious photos is kind of normal around a late-night post-bar munchies snack stand.
finally, this isn't exactly a snack per se, but it's a light dinner that we always have when we're with the parents-in-law. we bike the 10km or so to a little guesthouse in the woods where the bratwurst is made fresh by hand every day. here's the brats (in the lower right corner) with homemade sauerkraut, a glass of local white wine, and of course some strawberries (some random local farmer came by and sold them to whoever was outside eating). in the upper left corner, you'll see a very German dish called Mettbrot or Hackepeter; i call it "pig sushi." yes, it's essentially pork tartare; raw ground pork with some onions and seasoning, served on bread. it's quite popular, and plenty of Germans scarf it down regularly and don't get sick or get worms or have their insides explode. (most likely this is because the meat is locally raised, butchered, and prepared in small, clean places, not in freaky industrial feedlots/slaughterhouses. i mean, i've gotten badly sick from American fast food; no German i know has ever gotten ill from eating Hackepeter. draw your own conclusions.) on top, the tube of wasabi is a California import; my mother-in-law is addicted to spiciness and has created her own fusion cuisine as she now regularly squirts huge amounts of wasabi on her Wurst or pig sushi.