About that last blog post...

I'm in NC, and S just phoned from Germany to say his mom really liked the idea of that lemon cake we made, so could I give him the recipe; and I told him where to find the recipe and didn't even think to say "WTF dude. PIE. It's called PIE." Sigh.

Coming to terms: Kuchen, Torte, and pie

Big news: after 29 years of loving S and learning about him and Deutsche Kultur, I finally understand the difference between Torte and Kuchen, and why certain Germans insist on calling American pie Kuchen (even though they shouldn't).

The epiphany actually came last July, while we were visiting H in Steinebach. I was too busy hiking to blog then, but we finally had an opportunity to take up the question again this past Sunday, when we hosted Kaffee und Kuchen [und Torte und pie] for the neighbors on our block. Guests arrived at 3:45 p.m. We defined terms at 4:00 p.m., then ate the evidence.

Distinguishing Torte from Kuchen: an introduction

We started baking on Saturday afternoon. I asked S if he had a good recipe for Biskuitteig (no, not biscuit dough--sponge cake). He responded, "What are you making? Kuchenboden oder Tortenboden?"

Kuchenboden is cake base (literally, cake floor); Tortenboden is torte floor. Kuchenboden is often a layer of Murbeteig--shortbread dough--topped with a layer of Biskuitteig--sponge cake batter. In Obstkuchen, that Kuchenboden is topped with delectable fruit, often with pectin or gelatin or melted jam on top of the whole shebang to make it shiny.

Here are two photos of non-shiny Obstkuchen I made last summer in Steinebach. There's a layer of vanilla pudding between the cakes and the fruit, and maybe a thin layer of jam too, but I can't remember. There is not any Murbeteig under either Biskuit, but they're both clearly still Obstkuchen.

Thus our definition of Kuchen begins with Fructhkuchen. You use Kuchenboden for Obstkuchen.

Tortenboden, in contrast, is the Biskuit that you would put at the bottom of a Torte--and in the middle of Torte, as many times as you want, and on the top of Torte, if you want it there too. That is what make Tortenboden fundamentally different from Kuchenboden. (If you are thinking that the big difference is Murbeteig, think again; our Bavarian Kochbuch recommends Murbeteig under both Kuchen and Torten.)

Torte is almost always made with layers of sponge cake, with filling in between and optional stuff on top. Kuchen is just one layer of cake--sponge cake if you want, but any other kind of cake is fine too, including Murbeteig all by itself--with optional stuff on top.

Did you catch that?

Torte: layers of cake with stuff in between and optional stuff on top.
Kuchen: one layer of cake with optional stuff on top. 

In between, Torte. On top, Kuchen.

For Americans, layers of cake with stuff in between is called "layer cake." A layer of cake with stuff on top is also cake. It's all cake. Torte is fancy cake.

So in the context of making Obstkuchen and Torte, the question "Kuchenboden oder Tortenboden" is a weird cultural thing--a sort of cake phoneme--because the cake parts of both Böden are THE SAME THING. Bake a batch of Biskuitteig for Obstkuchen, and voilà (or schau hier): Kuchenboden. Layer those babies, and voilà/schau hier: Tortenboden. Indeed, the recipe we eventually chose for the Kuchen describes the result as Luftigt-leichter Kuchen, perfekt für Torten--"light-as-air cake, perfect for Torte."

I double checked with S. "Did you really say 'Kuchenboden oder Tortenboden'?" "Yes," he said, "because they're different."

Perhaps he was thinking ahead to the Nusstorte (nut torte) I was going to bake. While you probably wouldn't add nuts to Biskuitteig for Obstkuchen, they're certainly fair game in plain ol' non-Obst Kuchen (which remains Kuchen forever and a day unless you layer it--then BAM, Torte).

Here's a photo of a hazelnut-almond Torte I made in Steinebach last summer (and a photo of H helping). The four layers were laced with Kirschwasser and filled with cherry jam, chocolate cream, and sour cherries, then covered with more chocolate cream.

Exceptions to the rules

Rules wouldn't be rules if there weren't exceptions. Here are four:

1. Tiny Obstkuchen are called Obsttörtchen, because why the hell not? The -chen ending is a diminutive suffix--little fruit tortelets--and because adding -chen changes the German o to an ö, let's change the vowel in English too and call them tartlets. This is allowed only because they're cute, and probably necessary because Fructhkuchenchen is too hard to say (but Obstkuchlein isn't, and it's not like being difficult to pronounce stops other German words from existing). Note that chen in Kuchen is not diminutive--it's Kuch-en, not Ku-chen. I'm going to take a stab at a pun by observing that a diminutive cow might be a Kuhchen--but no German would ever pronounce Kuchen (coo-hen) and Kuhchen (coo-hyen) the same way, so no German would ever find that pun remotely funny.


2. Linzertorte, already controversial in its own right, is actually Kuchen, according to the in between / on top rule. It's also Kuchen according to the Torte-is-usually-sponge-cake rule. It made me very happy to discover, browsing through the index of our Bavarian Kochbuch, that the Bible of Bavarian cooking calls it Linzerkuchen.


3. Sometimes Kuchen can have an extra layer of Teig on top--e.g. a layer of Murbeteig on the bottom, with apples on top, and then another layer of Murbeteig on top of that. This is called gedeckter Apfelkuchen--covered apple cake--rather than Apfeltorte, because it lacks the sponge cake that is essential for all Torte (except Linzertorte, which is really a gedeckter Kuchen, and Obsttörtchen, which are diminutive.) I hope you are following the logic here.


4. Finally, S says there is Bodenlose Kaesekuchen--bottomless cheesecake--which, as you might guess, has no base layer of cake and is entirely made of the optional stuff on top. To confirm, we looked it up in the Kochbuch, where it is called Quarktorte ohne Boden--cheese TORTE without bottom. S says "this is a dumb cookbook."

Why certain Germans insist on calling pie "Kuchen"

Pie has its very own word in English, because unlike Torte and Kuchen, pie is NOT cake. Even assuming all pies had double crusts--which they don't--pie is NOT gedeckter Kuchen, because pie crust is neither cake nor shortbread.

Pie does consist of a base layer of non-sponge flour-based dough, with stuff on top, so it is more akin to Kuchen than to Torte--but that does not make pie "cake" any more than saying humans are "birds" because humans are more akin to birds than to boulders. If German can borrow words like Spaghetti, Toast, and Computer from other languages, it can borrow Pei.

One more rule

Our Bavarian neighbor F arrived on Sunday eager to talk definitions. He suggested that Torte filling almost always involves cream. This would explain why gedeckte Apfelkuchen can never be Torte, even though it's layered. It might squeak past the "usually sponge cake" rule, but the lack of cream keeps it out of the realm of Torte. This might also explain why bottomless cheesecake might be considered Torte, given the creamy dairy content.

Well, you might think that. But if you Google gedeckte Apfe..., oh dear: the search brings up both Apfelkuchen and Apfeltorte, and the photos look identical. To that, we say, "perhaps it's a regional difference" (which is our way of saying "uncle! We give up!").

Test your understanding

After lengthy discussion and Q&A with our neighbors, we gave them a quiz. Can you tell what's what? Answers and recipes are below.

A (left); B (right)

C

D

E

Answers:
A: Pie. This is pie. It is not cake. It is pie.
B:Obstkuchen.
C: Pie. Why is this so difficult for you?
D: Obstkuchen.
E: Trick question. There's visible cream and there's presumably cake underneath that, but you can't tell if it's Torte or Kuchen without cutting it open. But by process of elimination in this particular context, you know it has to be Torte. (If this question were on the ACT/SAT, the test-writers would call Torte the "best answer," which would annoy teens who understand nuance and complexity.)

The sacrifices we make for the sake of cultural understanding

Another view of the sacrifices we make

Aha! Layers! Torte!

Appendix: Recipes

We had a gluten-intolerant guest, so we made everything gluten-free. We used gluten-free flour for pie A and Obstkuchen; we purchased gluten-free pie crusts for the pies; and we used ground hazelnuts and no flour in the Nusstorte.

A. The recipe for this lemon custard pie is here. Until last year, it was the only lemon custard pie I had ever made (and I had only made it once.) It's silky-creamy and lemony-tart, with a nice lightness.

B and D: Here's the Biskuitteig recipe I used for the Obstkuchen. This recipe is enough for two Obstkuchen: bake all of the batter in one springform pan and then slice it in half to make two discs. The recipe calls for Speisestärke (starch). In Germany, that would be potato starch. We used cornstarch, but next time I'd probably just add a little more flour. We thought the cake was too sweet, so next time we'll reduce the sugar. S and E were in charge of the topping: a thin layer of jam, a layer of vanilla pudding, artfully arranged fruit, and a pectin glaze on top.

C. Oh my. Oh oh my. This is "Shaker Lemon Pie." Images kept popping up when I was trying to locate the recipe for pie A. Shaker Lemon Pie is stunningly beautiful, startlingly delicious, and super tart--but beware the sugar high. I found assorted recipes online and combined them into this: 5 unpeeled organic lemons (recipes ranged from 2 large to 6 small; some specified Meyer lemons, but we used Eurekas), sliced very thinly with a mandoline, and seeds picked out; toss gently with 1.75 c. sugar, and macerate until sugar dissolves (this takes only a few hours--recipes all said 24-hours or overnight). Stir in four beaten eggs and pour into an unbaked pie crust. (A few recipes said pre-baked. We tried pre-baking the gluten-free crust and it cracked, so that the filling oozed under the crust and glued parts of the crust to the pan. We didn't pre-bake the crust for A and it tasted fine, so next time we'll skip the pre-baking.) Bake at 325^oF for 50-60 minutes. (Recipes said 450^oF for 15 minutes and then 375^oF for 20 minutes, but we had another pie to bake at the same time that required gentler heat. Slow baking worked beautifully.)

D. See B.

E. Here's my version of Nusstorte, adapted and honed over several years from a base recipe by H. Despite all the steps, it's easy to make if you have an electric beater.

How to jubilate with propriety

I'm back in the U.S. but still have Wadlstrumpf blogging to catch up with. Allow me to begin with some observations about the proper pace of jubilating in Germany.

The discussion will focus on the opening hymn of the wedding mass the other week, "Erfreue dich Himmel, erfreue dich Erde."

If you were a Jewish American organist music-theorist who played for a small southern U.S. Lutheran church, you might note the dancing lilt of the 6/4 melody and, considering also the text ("Rejoice, Heaven; rejoice, Earth"), opt for a cheerful upbeat tempo such as this (please note I self-identify as a keyboardist, not a singer):



Germans, however, understand that because God is very far away, you must sing very slowly and very clearly in order for him to hear you. Joyous hymns, therefore, should be sung ponderously, while solemn hymns (given their solemnity) should be sung very very ponderously. "No--slower, slower," was the advice I received from my musician collaborators in the organ loft, "and don't forget to leave time for people to breathe at the breath marks here and here," thusly:



"I actually thought the hymns were a little fast," observed one relative after the ceremony. Seriously?, wonders the foreign Gastmusikerin, who was brought up in the U.S. on German classical music and doesn't remember joyfulness ever being so restrained.

A little research on youtube reveals that German organists apparently also feel the festive tug of this melody and find opportunities to push the tempo before settling into the lugubrious pious pace of the sung word.

As you watch the following video, listen to the peppiness of the improvised organ introduction; then observe the aural brick wall encountered just before the congregation begins singing (around 1:00-1:05). Note that the organist leaves lots of time for the singers to breathe and that the singers want to take an even slower tempo, which the organist gradually accommodates over the three verses.



I returned to the U.S. on Saturday, in time for work on Sunday morning. "Your sub did fine," people told me, "but he played too slowly." Oh, it's good to be home.

How to eat a Semmel at breakfast

The photographs in the previous post are somewhat misleading, because they show Semmel on plates. The proper way to eat a Semmel is as follows:

1. Slice the Semmel in half lengthwise. DO NOT RIP THE SEMMEL.
2. DO NOT PUT BOTH SEMMEL SLICES ON YOUR PLATE AT ONE TIME. This is not an arbitrary rule. Your plate is for butter and jam. There is not enough room for two Semmel slices. Plus, if you put both Semmel slices on your plate at once, you will get unsightly crumbs all over the plate.
3. Put the Semmel halves next to your plate.
4. Because the Semmel has already been sliced, if you so desire, you may now rip off a small piece from one half. (Remember, DO NOT put the remaining ripped Semmel half on your plate. It belongs NEXT TO your plate.)
5. Spread butter and/or jam onto the Semmel piece you plan to eat. During this process, it is permissible for the Semmel piece to come into contact with the plate.
6. Eat the Semmel piece.
7. Return to Step 4. Continue until all of the Semmel has been consumed.

Note that it is also perfectly appropriate to slice a Semmel in half, place one half next to your plate, and return the other half to the community Semmel bowl so that others may enjoy it. There are so many different varieties of Semmel (plain, poppy seed, plain, sesame seed, plain, Kaiser, and plain), that it's nice to share.

Behold the Semmel

Behold the Semmel in some of its infinite variety:

The Semmel* is the most revered of German breakfast foods. Made with refined white flour, it is what we oafish Americans would call a Kaiser roll and might ignorantly buy in the deli section at Kroger's without batting an eye. Not so in Germany. The locally-owned corner bakery might be good for Kuchen, but if you want the lightest, airiest, fluffiest, crust-crispest Semmel, you paradoxically must go to the chain-store bakery halfway up the block; and if you are a Semmel conoisseur (i.e. German), you can actually taste the difference. Unlike hearty rye Pfisterbrot ("the best bread we Bavarians have," says Helen, and which Stefan once gushed over by exclaiming, "and can you believe this stuff lasts for weeks without ever tasting stale?"), a Semmel's shelf life is limited to a few hours, on principle if nothing else. Reheated day-old Semmel do not a proper breakfast make: they must be purchased fresh, daily, if you're going to do breakfast right ("Immer frisch, immer frisch"--always fresh--Helen instructs). You could choose to start your day with something "heavy," say a whole-grain roll with actual nutritive content, but the Semmel-eating majority will shake their heads and pity your woeful miseducation.

*Northern Germans call Semmel Broetchen (diminutive breadlets), which Bavarians think is Just Wrong.

Abmelden

Earlier today, I drafted a blurb on visiting the Freiburg Bürgeramt (public authorities office), but I decided my description sounded unnecessarily petulant. Suffice it to say, this morning I went to the Bürgeramt to continue to initiate the first step in the process of commencing to bid adieu to what the proper paperwork filled out in duplicate and then submitted to and stamped and dated by a civil servant might, regardless of the temperament of said civil servant that day or any other, justifiably be identified as German Bureaucracy. Schoenen Tag noch.*

Whether I was successful remains to be seen, as I eventually abandoned hope of speaking with a live human being in the Un-Registration office, and instead used my Oblivious Ferner's wiles to convince the woman at the welcome desk to take my form. She looked dubious, because giving her the form meant I would not be able to obtain a receipt. Fortunately, the U.S. government doesn't give a hoot whether I have proof of un-registration from the city of Freiburg.

Afterward, I went out into the fresh air, stood on the corner with a bunch of other people, and pretended to be German by dutifully not crossing the street until the pedestrian signal gave us permission to do so.

*"Have a good rest of the day."

Fists, knives, and guns

The Badische Zeitung is reporting today on a crime in Bergkamen, near Dortmund, Nordrhein-Westfalen. A 16-year-old 9th-grader who had been suspended from school burst into his classroom yesterday, accompanied by a 14-year-old companion. They were armed with Schreckschusswaffen, gas pistols that look threatening and make a lot of noise when fired, but that don't shoot bullets. In front of the other students, the perpetrators beat the teacher and then fled. They were quickly apprehended.

Since our arrival in Freiburg in late July, we have read numerous newspaper articles about teenagers robbing people on trains, and about teenagers beating up people on and off trains and beating up the good Samaritans who come to the rescue. There have been fatalities in some these beatings, including a tragic case in Munich in late July.

We have read about murders. In the hotel on top of the Blauen, where we comfortably ate french fries and ice cream a few weeks ago, a Swiss man in his 50s was recently stabbed to death by another man in an act of jealousy over a woman. And in a case that drew international attention, a Dresden court recently sentenced a man to life in prison for stabbing a pregnant Muslim woman to death and seriously wounding her husband inside a courtroom last July, when he was on trial for defamation against the woman.

Knives seem to be the weapons of choice for lesser crimes as well. Earlier this fall, a robber held a cashier at knifepoint at one of the Lienhart bakeries in Freiburg; the robber was taken down by a punch to the jaw from master baker Christian Lienhart.

Occasionally we read about school shootings. There was one in Winnenden, Baden-Wuerttemberg, in March 2009, when a 17-year-old killed 15 students and then died in a shootout with police. But attempts by German students to do one another in don't typically involve guns. In mid-September, in Ansbach, Bavaria, a teacher and nine students were seriously injured when an 18-year-old student attacked the school with five Molotov cocktails, a knife, and an axe. Burning schools down also seems to be relatively popular amongst Germany's disenchanted youth, especially when they're drunk. Many people in nearby Merzhausen were shocked recently when two teenagers who set the Hexentalschule on fire in February were sentenced only to 60-120 hours of community service.

My thought reading the newspaper article today was that had the crime happened in the U.S., the weapons would have been guns with bullets, and the teacher and probably a few students would be dead. The homicide rate in the United States is roughly four times that in Germany; the U.S. rate of homicides involving firearms is six times higher than Germany's.

The lower murder rate here can be attributed to a variety of cultural and historical factors, including that Germany has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. That difference makes the idea of staying in Germany permanently quite compelling.

Die Rechnung, bitte

One of the differences between dining out in Germany and dining out in the U.S. is that in Germany, no one brings you your bill until you specifically ask for it. Unless you ask for the bill while your table is being cleared, you must hail the waiter across the room. Once you have accomplished eye contact, you raise your eyebrows a little and nod your head up and down while miming the act of holding a pen in your hand and writing out a bill. If the waiter is within hearing distance, you also say "die Rechnung, bitte" ("the bill, please").

Once you put this sequence into action, you must be prepared to pay as soon as the bill arrives. The waiter shows you the total, then stands next to you with his or her money pouch at the ready while you quickly calculate how much to add in for Trinkgeld. Trinkgeld means "drink money"--a little extra so the waiter can go out for ā Maß Biā (a portion of beer) or something after work. Waiters in Germany earn a decent wage, and service is already included in the bill, so the 15-20% we pay in the U.S. isn't necessary here. Still, you want to add in the right amount: too little, and you're cheap; too much, and you're an overpaying tourist. Trinkgeld is usually on the order of 5-10% of the total bill.

The waiter is standing there while you figure out the total and also while you pull out some bills and check the coins in your pocket. You need cash, because credit cards are rarely accepted in any but the most touristy of restaurants. If you're lucky, your pocket it full of nice big one- and two-Euro coins, or at least coins with monetary values ending in zeros (50 cents, 20 cents, 10 cents); but more likely, you have an excess of those annoying 1, 2, and 5 cent coins, and not in any combination that's useful for paying die Rechnung. Having wasted time hoping to unload your excess change, you revert to the paper bills and tell the waiter how much change you'd like back.

All of this makes me a little nervous. I'm not an assertive hailer, to begin with; and as a relative newbie in Germany, calculating appropriate Trinkgeld is still not obvious or intuitive to me yet. Then there's the added pressure of having the waiter stand there all the while, waiting to get on with his or her work while I'm wasting time pulling out my pocketful of useless pennies, so I forget to use coins altogether, add 10%, round up to the nearest Euro, and generally end up tipping too much.

When Elias and I were having lunch in Baden-Baden last weekend, my Rechnungsangst caused me to jump the gun a little. The waiter arrived to remove the dishes, and I knew she was going to ask if we wanted anything else, so when she did speak, I said, "no; the bill please." She became brusquely businesslike. It immediately occurred to me that she had probably said, "was everything to your liking?"--in response to which, "no; the bill please," takes on a somewhat different meaning.

Making purchases, lesson II

Elias has a book of very short children's stories in German, by Werner Färber. In one of the stories, a customer enters a small village store and asks for some peace.

"You'd like some peace?" the proprietor asks.
--"Yes please. I need it urgently."
"Do you need a lot?"
--"As much as possible."
"Whole or sliced?"
--"Whole, please."
"Alright. How much do you want to pay?"
--"Price is no object. I just need enough."

Were you paying attention during the previous lesson on making purchases? Do you remember what the proprietor and the buyer are supposed to say next? Check your notes before reading onward!

Ready? The answer is:

"Darf es ein klein wenig mehr sein?" ("Is it OK if there's a little more [than you asked for]?")
--"Aber sicher. Gerne. Wenn das geht" ("But of course, sure, if that works.")

Did you get it right? Then you're ready to shop in Germany!

Eventually the seller gets ticked off because the buyer doesn't want the seller to wrap the piece of peace for him. That apparently violates transaction etiquette in small village stores. Happily, in green-city Freiburg, sellers don't mind if buyers don't want things wrapped.

A Bfund Kadoffen

Elias and I had a date in the Altstadt yesterday afternoon: we caught the new Pettersson und Findus movie at the Harmonie Kino and then had dinner at our favorite cheap restaurant, Euphrat.

On the way home, we stopped by the Thalia bookstore, where I coveted but did not buy the Alemannisches Wörterbuch für Baden. I'm starting to think of suitcase space and schlepping things back to the U.S., and it's a big book. I suppose it would have to be, considering that there are fifty different ways just to say "potato." So instead, I went for a small pocket paperback entitled Bairisch: das echte Hochdeutsch (Bavarian: the real High-German), by Richard H. Kölbl.

The book offers a fine sample dialog on buying potatoes at the market, which I quote in its entirety (English translations added) because of what it tells us about both potatoes and market transactions in Germany:

Biddsche, wås deafsn sei?
Bitteschön, was darfs denn sein?
[Please, what would you like?]

I hädd gean ā Bfund Kadoffen.
Ich hätte gerne ein Pfund Kartoffeln.
[I'd like a pound of potatoes.]

Woiche woinSn då? De fesdn odā bißl woachāre?
Welche wollen Sie da? Festkochende oder weichere?
[Which kind would you like? Those that hold together when cooked or those that are soft (waxy or starchy)?]

De fesdn hädd i gean ghabd.
Die festen, bitte.
[I'd like the waxy ones.]

Deafs ā wengāl mearā sei?
Darfs ein bisschen mehr sein?
[Is it OK if there's a little more (than a pound)?]

āja freile.
Natürlich.
[Yes, sure.]

HåmS sunsd no ān Wunsch?
Darf es noch etwas sein?
[Do you desire anything else?]

Nā, dangsche, des wārs.
Nein, danke, das wärs.
[No, thanks, that's all.]

Dann machāds drei Eiro grådaus.
Genau drei Euro, bitte.
[That comes to three Euros even.]
(pp. 98-99)

What can we learn from this conversation?

First, observe the unit of measurement, ā Bfund. In the U.S., we are taught that there are 2.2 pounds per kilogram.* In Germany, however, ein Pfund is half a kilogram, an even 500 grams rather than 454 grams. To an American like me, that's kind of like saying π is 3.2 (which, regrettably, is an American sort of thing to say), but if you try to discuss this with, for example, your Bavarian husband, he gets all defensive. For marital harmony, we agree ā Bfund is not a pound the world around.

It's a moot point, anyway, as demonstrated by the question, Deafs ā wengāl mearā sei? It's not uncommon that when you ask for a certain amount of something, say 100 g of olives, the stall proprietor puts a 200 g scoop into a bag for you and then asks if the extra amount is OK. The good thing about this is that the proprietor has much more experience weighing olives than you do, so he knows that when you said 100 g, you really meant 200 g.

Next, observe that the exchange includes a pivotal question: De fesdn odā bißl woachāre? In Germany, every potato has a role to play, a function to fulfill. It is vitally important to know what kind of potato to use for what situation. Perish the thought that you would use woachāre Kadoffen for a casserole, or fesdn for mashed potatoes. Be prepared for blank stares when you say you intend to bake them. Germans probably bake potatoes as often as they bake pie, which is to say, close to never. The proprietor may have to consult with her colleague, but in the end you will get the best potato for the job.

Finally, notice the price: drei Eiro grådaus. While the requested vs. proffered amount of olives might differ by a factor of two, it's easy to be more precise when weighing potatoes. At most you now have maybe a Pfund and a quarter. Dialect aside, you know you're in Bayern, and not in the bread-basket of Germany that is Baden-Württemberg, when a little more than a Pfund of potatoes costs a whopping three Euros. Note also that it costs exactly three Euros, despite the bit of extra weight. Costs often get rounded down for ease of transaction--one of the pleasant bonuses of shopping at farmers' markets.

*On Earth, anyway, where, conveniently, both Germany and the U.S. are located. A pound is a unit of weight. A kilogram is a unit of mass--as is, apparently, ā Bfund.

School and a field trip

Elias headed off this morning for a two-night field trip to the Landschulheim ("country school home") in Bonndorf (in the Schwarzwald) with his 3rd-grade class. This trip highlights all sorts of ways school here is different from school in the U.S.

Consider:

* Third graders here go for extended overnight field trips, without parent chaperones. The 24 students will be supervised by their teacher and four trained teaching assistants. The kids will go hiking, play games outside, build kites, and learn how to safely whittle with pocket knives. Parents are advised to chill out and trust their kids are in good hands.

* We first heard about the trip two and a half weeks ago, when Elias's teacher sent home a xeroxed hand-written note: "In the flurry of school starting up, I forgot to tell you the class will be taking a two-night trip to Bonndorf Oct. 13-15. Details to follow at the parents' meeting later this week."

* Instead of weeks of permission slip requests and reminders and final warnings, a permission slip came home a week ago, along with a finalized list of things to bring (sheets, hiking boots, warm clothes, a flashlight) and not to bring (iPods, Handys, Gameboys), and instructions for paying the 70 Euro fee by Ueberweisung (bank money transfer). Asking parents to pay 70 Euros for a field trip is possible here because most of the kids live in Herdern, a relatively well off neighborhood. The government will subsidize the trip for families who need financial assistance.

* Meals will be provided, and vegetarians will be accommodated. Elias said that when his teacher asked the class who else besides him doesn't eat meat, everyone raised their hands; when she asked who else can't eat meat, all but one of the hands went down.

Field trip aside, there are other observable differences between school here and school back home in Durham, NC.

Elias attends 22.5 hours of school per week here; at home, 32.5 hours per week (or if you subtract lunch, 30.5 hours per week). He claims that kids at home are much better behaved, but that he's learning more here.

At the parents meeting, the teacher described the class as "almost completely homogenous"--meaning almost all of the kids are performing at the same academic level.

Several people told us kids don't learn multiplication here until after third grade. It turns out that "multiplication" in Germany means "multiplying numbers greater than 11." Kids learn "Das kleine Einmaleins"--"the small one-times-ones," a.k.a. multiplication from 0-10--in second grade. Third grade covers addition and subtraction of numbers up to 1,000.

Religion--a choice between Katholisch and Evangelisch Christianity--is taught at school twice a week. Children can opt out of these lessons, although no other lessons are provided during that time. Elias is hanging with the Protestants, but it continues to grate on my U.S. sensibilities that in a country where millions of people not so long ago were slaughtered for their religion, government-run institutions are asking children to self-identify as being outside the mainstream. The folks I've talked with here about this have reassured me, saying that even Christian kids are opting out more often these days. Hmm.

"Sport" is taught three times a week. Kids bring and change into gym clothes on those days. After they get all sweaty, the kids either change clothes again or go for the layered look and put their regular school clothes on on top.

Children bring slippers or houseshoes to wear in the classroom. Street shoes stay outside by the door.

In Grundschule, the same group of kids typically has the same teacher from the first day of first grade through last day of fourth grade. Each classroom operates as an independent entity: while Elias's class mingles with the other third grade classes during recess, they don't mingle academically.

Kids practice spelling and handwriting with regular "Diktat" (dictation) exercises. As in the U.S., when German kids compose their own texts, the pedagogical emphasis is on expression rather than spelling and grammar.

German kids are just as reticent as U.S. kids when their parents grill them about what they did at school on any given day. The one-word highlight of the school day in here is virtually identical to the one-word highlight of the school day in the U.S.: "Pause" ("recess").

Frohe Weihnachten!

A month ago, I thought it was just an anomaly. I thought the big Edeka on Habsburger Strasse was simply selling leftovers from last year, clearing out straggling inventory, perhaps from a dusty, misplaced box recently re-discovered in the storeroom.

But then they appeared in the back-to-school section of the Karstadt department store.

With the sudden and purposeful arrival two weeks ago of similar items at our small corner Edeka, the evidence became too strong to overlook, and could only mean one thing: Advent, the secular season that, in the U.S., begins the day after the Hallowe'en candy is cleared from the shelves, starts even earlier in Germany.

The consequence is that we have over three months--more than a quarter of the year!--to enjoy Lebkuchen. Traditional German christmas cookies, Lebkuchen are made with ground almonds, hazelnuts, or walnuts, candied orange and lemon peel, flour, eggs, honey, and spices of the cinnamon/cardemom/cloves variety. They're baked on thin wafers called Oblaten, and then brushed with a barely crispy sugar or chocolate glaze. Sometimes jam is involved, sometimes decorative blanched almonds and candied fruit. The shapes vary from traditional rounds to hearts, Christmas trees, and pretzels. The cheap ones, many of which can be purchased in stores now, substitute ground apricot pits for some or all of the nuts.

Joining Lebkuchen on the shelves are Spekulatius and Pfeffernuesse, also traditional Christmas cookies. Spekulatius are thin, spiced, stamped shortbreads, sometimes with slivered almonds pressed into them; in the U.S. they're known as Dutch windmill cookies (and in the Netherlands, as Speculaas). Pfeffernuesse are little glazed spiced nut cookies. They're the crunchy hard siblings to the tender chewy Lebkuchen.

Our corner store is not terribly large. That they're dedicating almost as much shelf space to Christmas cookies (about twice what's shown in the photo) as to noodles says a lot about the expected demand for the cookies in the coming months. Such treats have not yet arrived, however, at the Lienhart bakery, where the bakers continue to produce colorful fruit tarts, as though fall has barely begun.

A little friendly distance

Stefan's brother and sister-in-law returned this evening from their bicycle tour of the Black Forest. Thus I was fresh off a leisurely two-hour dinner conversation with Bavarians when I arrived at the Lutheran Church's choir practice and said "Gruessdi!" to my fellow Tenoress. "Gruessdi" is Bavarian for "Greetings to informal-you-singular!"

A shocked expression crossed her face and she replied, "Wir siezen, bitte" ("we shall call one another formal-you, please"). Thereupon followed a quite educational conversation during which I tried to say, "I'm so sorry, I always get that mixed up in German, plus I was recently speaking with Bavarians. In English we have only one word for informal-you-singular, informal-you-plural, and formal-you-singular-or-plural, and that word is 'you,' unless one lives in the south, where one may also say 'y'all.'"

"No," Frau T. replied, "it is not at all complicated in German. You-formal and I are not intimate acquaintances. It is important to maintain a little friendly distance. Young people these days, they duzen [call one another informal-you] all the time. They don't understand that a little friendly distance is important. You can be friends with someone for thirty years without ever duzening. Yes, it is useful to keep a little friendly distance."

Meanwhile, one of the sopranos I met last week sailed past us and, seeing me, said, "oh yes, informal-you're Regina, right?" "No, I'm Liz," I corrected her; "and informal-you are...?" "Alex!" she said cheerfully, continuing on her way.

Introductions are important. It's generally OK to duzen with people who offer you their first names, but certainly you should siezen with people who tell you only their last names. Had I actually understood my fellow Tenoress when she introduced herself last week ("Ich bin frauzeh," she said, and I thought "well, I'll have to look up that adjective when I get home"), I would probably have been able to figure out that Zeh ("toe") was an unlikely first name--although, looking back on it, I'm sure I was siezening with her last week, because she's significantly older than I am, and courtesy dictates that you always siezen with your elders. So tonight I just messed up.

Complicating matters is that in Bavaria, when you meet strangers on a path, you are allowed to say "Gruessdi" (or "Gruess euch" if you encounter a group). Because you and your fellow wanderer both like to take walks, you have a special bond that permits such ebullient informality. If you are afraid someone will take you to task for duzening on the trail, you can play it safe and say "Gruess Gott" ("Grettings to God"), which in Southern Germany allows you to sound less like a foreigner than "Guten Morgen," "Guten Tag," or "Guten Abend." (Perish the thought that you would ever say "Gute Nacht" as a greeting--that's for late-night farewells only.)

One way to figure out whether you are supposed to siezen or duzen is to wait for the person with whom you are speaking to use a pronoun first. Until then, construct sentences that avoid pronouns altogether.

Perhaps the challenge young people these days have with keeping all these informal and formal yous straight is the reason that greetings have degenerated over the past twenty years from "Guten Tag" and "Gruess Gott" to the far cruder "Hallo." My fellow Tenoress agrees that "Hallo" is too informal and wonders what this world is coming to.

Balance

Now that Sommerferien is over, we are at last finding a balance in our lives between school, work, practice, and play.

This morning I practiced at the Lutheran church. The Braunschweig is kind of like a pre-adolescent golden retriever: its bark is relatively small and its feet a little oversized, but it's enthusiastic and eager to please, so you forgive it when its wagging tail whaps you. At precisely 11:30, the next organist came up to the loft, and I went my merry way back home, the falling leaves and light autumn breezes all the more lovely for the two and a half uninterrupted, productive practice hours. Right now I'm sitting outside, listening to the shouts of children enjoying Pause (recess) at the elementary school and to the church bells up the road chiming 12:00.

Later, I will go out with Elias for our regular go-grocery-shopping-almost-every-day-because-your-fridge-is-small-plus-you're-a-Hausfrau-therefore-you-have-time-to-shop-every-day experience. Grocery shopping in Germany is BYOEFB (bring your own ecologically friendly bags). Because you don't buy very much stuff at any one time (how many times must I remind you, your fridge is small), the check-out counter is only 4 feet long, giving you about two feet to put your items down and two feet for the checker to ring them up and push them forward and for you quickly to bag them before the next customer needs the space. As you bag your items, you think about how the small check-out space balances not only with the small fridge at home but also with the population-density-demands-packing-maximal-necessities-into-minimal-spaces rule. Because roads are narrow and cars are cramped, you also appreciate that there are four grocery stores, a fruit store, and two bakeries packed within easy walking distance.

Occasionally you will meet an eccentric German who likes to buy in bulk, like Stefan's mom's hairdresser. He throws up his hands at the diminutive packages of Philidelphia (as Bavarians call American cream cheese) sold at Tengelmann, and instead buys the two-kilo tub at the German Costco equivalent. He stores it in the large refrigerator in his shed, because the fridge won't fit into his kitchen.

Shutters

Every day that we're in Freiburg, I look around at the beautiful historic edifices; the flower boxes and carefully tended gardens bright with yellow, red, and fuchsia blossoms; the stately Jugendstil apartment houses in our neighborhood, with their swooping arches and stained glass windows; the tables of colorful fruits and vegetables at the farmers' markets; the dark green pine-covered hills of the Schwarzwald; the pleasant parks and playgrounds, filled with kids of all ages; the standing wave patterns of the water in the cobblestone-lined canals of the Altstadt; and the crunchy brown leaves and Lindenbaum flowers fluttering down from the trees as summer merges into fall; and I think: I really need new glasses. If it gets bad enough, I'll blog about finding an optician in Freiburg.

As lovely as the sights are in Freiburg, people here don't necessarily want to see them--or perhaps people themselves don't want to be seen--after about 4pm. Thankfully, shutters offer a not-entirely-cumbersome way to shut out the noisy, harsh, outside world, allowing residents to create impenetrable, cave-like atmospheres in their very own homes. The amazing thing is that shutting out all the light can actually be charming (at least from the outside) when you do it with old-fashioned, functional shutters. Check it out, suburban America--shutters that actually open and close!

Of course, closing such shutters requires opening your windows, which you might not want to do in the middle of the winter. To address this problem, humankind invented the hideously ugly custom-made polymer shutter, which you can close over the outside of your window by pulling on a strap inside the house.

To compensate for the resultant dungeon-like darkness, humankind invented the €14.95 lamp at Ikea.

Cultural differences

Yesterday, we moved into our apartment in Freiburg. After six weeks of traveling, we've finally emptied our suitcases and put them into storage. It feels good to have a space to call our own.

Around the corner from our apartment building is a lovely little fountain--a rectangular stone basin that receives a constant stream of water from a patinaed spout with a floral motif. A plaque above the spout reads "Verschmutzung verboten!," which means "Dirtying forbidden!"

I love what this sign says about German culture. First, it assumes that anyone who would consider befouling a pretty fountain--let us call such persons "vandals"--can read. This is logical, as Germany's literacy rate is one of the highest in the world. Second, it assumes that literate vandals will be dissuaded by a sign that tells them mucking up the fountain is verboten. Perhaps German vandals are too obtuse to understand that dirtying fountains is inappropriate; thus, telling them it isn't allowed will correct their wayward urges.

I maintain that a mere sign will not stop anyone low enough to consider verschmutzing a fountain; Stefan maintains, "it will, if they were brought up right."

Is Stefan correct on this one? Freiburg is the most graffiti-covered city I've ever visited in Germany--graffiti in the Altstadt, graffiti on our apartment building, graffiti on bridges and signs and trees. There are clearly people around who are willing to verschmutz things that most people would recognize ought not be verschmutzed. The fountain, with its forceful, exclamation-point enhanced, cast bronze command, appears untainted.

Yet observe the four mysterious, cement-filled spots around the plaque. What was on the wall before? A Jugendstil flourish, chiseled off by someone unaware of the rules? Or a previous authoritative order, absconded with by vandals who learned about irony im Gymnasium?

Speaking of Schmutz and cultural differences, a word is also in order about prepositions and the Wasser Klo (WC). After 19 years of visiting Germany, I have finally learned to say "aufs Klo" ("on the water closet") rather than "ins Klo" ("in the water closet"), for Germans call the toilet itself the Klo, as opposed to the tiny narrow closet in which it resides, and they laugh at you (appropriately) when you tell them you have to go into the toilet. There is more to be said about German toilets--particularly the special platform within the bowl--but I can't bring myself to write about that on a public blog.