A brief German lesson. ‘Bio‘ is organic and ‘Apfelchips‘ is apple chips.
Der Spiegel wrote about German as one of the most organic-obsessed nation. I have first hand evidence. There are many strictly organic grocery stores selling cheese, wine, beer, yeast and snacks and they are as complete as a normal supermarket. Bakeries offer a wide selection of organic breads and some of them are purely organic. In their kitchen, my German hosts stock almost 100% organic produce. So Der Spiegel had not report inaccurately at all.
For the nights we chose to eat in, we’d stroll out a few blocks from
the apartment in Haidhausen (Munich) to grab some ingredients to cook.
By the way, unlike us where marketing is usually done weekly, the
locals tend to buy fresh for the day’s use only. While the hosts play
chef and pick out the raw ingredients, I’ll wander into other aisles.
To me, that’s a way of getting to know the locals – through
what they buy and consume.
Some fascinating things I found include five to six varieties of
organic yeast each for a different type of bread and these apple chips
sitting next to banana chips, mango chips and many more.
These chips were crunchy and pleasantly sweet as the apples’ best
flavours captured through its dehydration. I stuffed palmfuls into my
mouth like how I usually do with potato crisps, minus the guilt.
