Category Archives: Germany
The link between nutrition and heart disease…
Here’s a foodie joke that popped into my in-box this morning. I like it…
THE FINAL WORD ON NUTRITION
After an exhaustive review of the research literature, here’s the final word on nutrition and health.:
1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
3. Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
4.. Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
5. Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
6. The French eat foie-gras, full fat cheese and drink red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us
The Joker’s CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.
Epic’s conclusion: stock up the cellar, eat more foie gras, go to Wahaca more and book for 2009 Oktoberfest.
A Year in the Scheisse by Roger Boyes
Anyone who reads travel literature as often as I do will know that there aren’t that many books written in the English language about the daily life of ex-pats in Germany. Roger Boyes has changed that, although it’s hard to tell whether this is autobiographical, semi-biographical or 100 per cent genuine fiction and Googling the issue hasn’t helped me get to the bottom of this yet.
Nevertheless, A Year in the Scheisse, Getting to Know the Germans, is a romp through Germany from the perspective of an ex-pat English journo living in Berlin, who finds great interest in swapping potato recipes with his former German tutor. Meanwhile, his father fought in the Second World War and has a best friend with embarrassingly healthy Germano-phobia. Dad is also broke to the point that the family piano has been taken by the bailiffs. At work, this particular correspondent proves he will go anywhere in the interests of unknown tales of Hitler, the man, and, in his spare time he’s the Georgie Porgie of German speed-dating, making all the girls cry. Most importantly, his own dwindling finances need rescuing, big time. The question is, how will he do it?
This book is very readable but not exactly politically correct. The at times strained English-German relationship is treated here in an unusually matter-of-fact manner, making this book a gem. There’s post-war ill feeling, an attempt at cake sabotage with political intent and the caricatures throughout give the Daily Telegraph’s Social Stereotypes a run for its money, although, sadly, without the illustrations.
Highly recommended for all those who know and/or love Germany and who’d like a light-hearted look at what it might be like to live there.
