Der Nebel steigt, es fällt das Laub - a German and Austrian autumn thread

[AntiqueMuppet]

A thread for anyone living in Germany or Austria, or anyone else who fancies a chat.

Previous thread here

I think there's a big risk of ending up feeling that there are very few things that are ok to eat, so I don't blame your bro for feeling like that, nutella. Unfortunately we mostly hear about what's bad for us, so if you start off as a vegetarian, but then cut out bread (carbs=bad), cheese (fat=bad), fruit (fructose=bad), rice (another carb), nuts (allergen, fatty), etc. then you end up hungry and feeling guilty. Anyone who goes all-out for some particular restrictive diet (paleo, vegan, whatever) ends up having to convince themselves that some of what they read online is bollocks, that, in fact, fat or wheat or soya or dairy is fine, because they can't justify their dietary choices otherwise. I actually think that's fine, better than the "oh, I'm going to be naughty and eat a slice of bread" attitude at any rate.

I used to live in Okinawa Cheas - from what I saw there was loads of fish and other seafood eaten and a fair bit of pork, including quite a lot of pork fat, and not only rice but a lot of (really delicious) thick noodles - but not much other meat and not much dairy at all ... Also young women only seemed to eat socially (a bit like social smokers, they only consumed food as part of a social setting and were all so slight a strong breeze would have blown them away- no wonder nobody went out when there were hurricane warnings, but when I walked to the shop in the post hurricane strong winds I was fine :o)

Ooh I missed an interesting morning on here!

Fructose is bad?! How bad? DS would eat nothing but fruit if I let him & he has a banana/apple/kiwi/pear/plum with most meals.

English A friend of mine lived in Japan for a year and said she'd never eaten so well in her life and felt so healthy for it. I imagine a lot of that has to do with your own personal perception though.

Nutella That sounds like a difficult situation to be in for your brother, having to be so careful with what you eat and never knowing whether certain things will make it worse or better.

Witches I didn't realise the soya thing was just a myth. That's good to know as that's one of the foodstuffs I do try to avoid to much of.

cheas That book sounds really interesting. I might have a look and see if it's available to download onto my Kindle.

Last night's flat viewing cancelled, but we have another four lined up for the next few days, so fingers crossed!

I also think you can end up getting paranoid about food. I worked for a family when I started learning german and if the dad heard or read something negative about some kind of food then it wasn't allowed in the house until he forgot about it or the next kind of food was in the news. One examlple I remember a report that bakeries didn't declare all the ingredients in their bread so his wife had to start baking her own bread!

Did anyone watch the Jamie Oliver chicken nugget experiment? Put my dc off nuggets for life and then they saw a documentary about how they make sausages in Germany and salami etc and that went off the menu too!

Our neighbours back when the dc were tots were on a health food trip and only bought food that was bio, their dc had never had white flour or white sugar (that was the evil of all evils to them). Ground their own flour, made own bread and had bio-veg and salad every day, no refined sugar in the house etc then the husband got cancer so much for all their healthy eating habits.

Anyway, wasted a whole morning at the doctor as a GP can't give an Überweisung to get the mole removed from dd's lip, so she has to go in the waiting line for an appointment with a dermatologist. Oh well, at least we know now!

Just made a lovely vegetable biryani with cashews and almonds mixed in for today.

antique hope the other 4 viewings go well!

Do you have a kindle from Germany or UK? Dh wants to get a couple for me and the dc and I was wondering if you buy a kindle book can you pass it on to another kindle or is it only downloadable once?

antique fruit is not bad, but fructose switches off appetite regulator hormones (to ensure we eat lots of fruit at times of glut and get plenty of vitamins, etc.) Unfortunately, adding sucrose (50% glucose, 50%) or High Fructose Corn Syrup (>50% fructose) to nearly every processed product in the supermarket has a similar effect and is possibly responsible for the obesity epidemic. There's a really interesting article in the Daily Telegraph about it which I don't have time to search for right now, also very long and detailed article in the NY Times, iirc.

English I've also noticed that tendency to eat very little in my Japanese friends. I lent my copy of that book to my sister, so I can't check whether it was Okinawans that he mentions, but I remember seeing a documentary about living to 100 which looked at the traditional diet there and I think they said it was almost vegan - the modern diet may be different, of course. How long did you live there? I'm a complete Japanophile, am very .

admylin My Kindle is German. I think you can 'lend' books between Kindles, but have never done it myself so am not sure how it works. Any books you buy are saved on your Amazon account so you could redownload them if you were to wipe your Kindle, I think. I love mine!
Your biryani sounds lovely - I'm on a curry ban this week while we have viewings and it's too cold to have the windows open too much, boo!

cheas I'll have a look for those articles, thanks!
I'm generally of the opinion that if he's eaten a fair bit of his dinner then I don't mind him guzzling fruit. I try not to give him too much in the way of processed stuff (although I haven't quite gone as far as baking my own bread) so I won't panic about his fruit intake for now. (Watch this space, in a few years I'll be fretting that he doesn't eat enough fruit, I'm sure!)

Book downloaded, cheas!

Afternoon all,

Interesting discussion about food - I noticed that when we were visiting our friends in Germany, they (and their friends) were far more conscious of what they were eating than people generally seem to be here. (DH also said he saw more low-alcohol beer in our two days there than he had in the previous two years.) Having said that, most of the Austrians I know eat relatively little processed food and usually cook from scratch. I found Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser a very interesting read, but must admit I still frequent McDonald's for their coffee.

I've only ever met one vegetarian Austrian over the past 20 years, although there must be a market for vegetarian food as Spar introduced a new veggie range here about a year ago. It even includes hummus of three different flavours - and I'm now the proud owner of some thanks to platanos. We had a lovely time with her and her DC today and I've been nagging her again to come back to the thread, so I hope she takes some notice of me this time.

Anyway, must get on with some work as we're going out for DH's birthday meal in an hour. Your mention of vegetable biryani has really made me wish we were going to an Indian restaurant this evening admylin, but there aren't any here so we're going to a Greek place instead.

admylin your curry sounds delicious! I really love curry and definitely need to look up the website you recommended! Sorry your DD hasn't had much success with the GP. DP wanted to see a dermatologist but decided that his problem wasn't serious enough for the several months wait it required

Antique the funny thing is my brother doesn't care what he eats. He's decided life is too short to worry about it; and he's not figured out what causes it to flare up so he reckons he's better off enjoying his food rather than worrying about it.

Linzer 3 different flavours of hummus?! Can't even get normal hummus here! Or I should try looking harder and why do they love Greek food so much? There are loads of Greek restaurants here too.

Well today we picked up a second hand cot and a changing table -thank you eBay Kleinanzeigen!- Then because no weekend is complete without it we took a trip to Ikea... Think we are now kitted out and can spend some quality time together building flat pack furniture... Yay

And I've been meaning to post this link about Christmas puddings don't know if you've seen it but it gave me a little chuckle!

When I went to Austria I was offered eggs and milk as the vegan options, and then told I could pick out the vegetables on the serving platter that the dead turkey was on, that had been marinated in turkey juices. I came back thinner, that holiday! :)

A quick link that's just popped up on my Fb re milk, I don't want to turn this into a vegan thread! :) www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=398583590209692&set=a.216201598447893.48092.152547194813334&type=1 Just thought it may be of interest to some.

Nutella, glad you are all set for your baby's arrival! How exciting! :)

admylin, hope your DD gets seen and sorted soon re her lip. Hopefully it is nothing and will heal itself.

witches - I´ve had similar problems in Austria even as a much less complicated pescetarian. "No beef broth, thanks, I don´t eat meat." - "But the meat´s been taken out." And having been assured that some cheese dumplings were vegetarian, I was rather surprised to be served sauerkraut with pieces of bacon in it alongside them.

I don´t think you need to apologise for posting vegan links on here. So many of us are interested in the issue and would appreciate any suggestions for how we could make our diets more varied and possibly healthier.

Nutella/Linzer - I´m not that bothered by Greek food, but my mum group that meets up every couple of months or so regularly chooses one of the two Greek restaurants here. At least we have an Indian restuarant as well (although the mum group never seems to want to go there).

I made a tzatziki-style dip yesterday out of a vegan cookbook, though, which was delicious. Definitely one to make again, although processing cashew nuts until they go creamy is not much fun with a hungry, whining three yo around.

Using ipad keyboard, hence no attempts to make names bold today. Maybe I´ll work it out soon!

I was in Okinawa a year cheas, it was just the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) programme which every other direction less arts or humanities graduate applies for ;) I could have renewed for up to 3 years but rural Japan is a strange old place - interesting and frustrating by turns, and very isolating (everyone is incredibly friendly and polite, then a few weeks in you realise all the friendliness is good manners and "harmony" not what most westerners would see as "genuine" - it takes a while to understand how incredibly reserved and private the culture really is. Okinawa is a bit odd too as there are the big American bases, though I was nowhere near them and when I did go to the town they all socialised in and met the military types I found them just as culturally alien to me as the Japanese, but away from them it is not remotely international - I was the only westerner in my town and got followed around by people, especially in shops but even in the street - it wasn't sinister, people just followed me out of curiosity. My students always knew everything I'd bought in the shop and eaten in a restaurant even if in another town, as their cousin's friend's mother's neighbor would have seen me... I kind of faked the level of my Japanophileness (now that's a word) to get the job (I was a literature undergrad so just read the university library's small collection of work by Japanese authors and waxed lyrical about that at the interview) because I fancied a fairly well paid second gap year rather than a serious "career" - oops. Am glad I went but I can't say I am an unreserved fan of all things Japanese. I think I might have stayed longer if I'd been in Tokyo or Osaka or another big international city.

Got an ill toddler today :( High fever over night though meds bring it down, but he doesn't know what to do with himself and is now climbing on me and throwing himself about, so better put the laptop down!

After hours and hours of nagging by Linzer I have to post. It was lovely to see her and hers and she summarised what was going on on the thread. Food talk is always interesting (as well as confusing), especially as we are making the adjustment to DHs veganism and discovering new ingredients and recipes.

Linzer passed on your greeting ploom (thanks and hello back!) and confirmed you are a real person and not that proverbial hairy random trucker who we all feel will greet us on the first mumsnet meeting.

when does your vegan week end admylin ?(sorry if you said anything about this above, just skim read...) Do you think you will keep anything from it? Careful with getting a Kindle, it gets very expensive. I got one for christmas last year and I do like it...though I do miss the feel of books. Linzer showed me the size of a real copy Wolf Hall yesterday, and after seeing what a tome it is, I am not sure I am going to struggle through it. But what I mean is that although it is very practical it is hard to totally recreate the same emotions as when one reads real books.

English- I knew someone who also did JET in rural Japan and said exactly the same thing as you did - if it weren't because I know she does not live in Germany, I could swear you are her. It sounds very lonely. Sorry to hear about an ill toddler - so difficult to deal with when they are healthy enough to jump around and yet not well enough to do anything proper with them. DH insists that sick children should be in bed recovering, and while I agree in principle, my dc are not of the same view. But they do jump into bed when they hear he is on his way home....

antique - sorry to hear about the curry ban. But I can imagine the lingering smell is not appealing. Hope you find someone soon....We are having a great discussion at work, about what people are allowed to cook in the office kitchen....no fish, onion, garlic or "other smelling things". I think it would help if they did not burn things too...how they manage to burn something every day is beyond me. There's no way to get on mumsnet in the kitchen - the usual explanation for burnt food chez nous.

hello to everyone else. Hope the weekend is treating you well - grey but mild here. We were going to go to the main library today - huge building with loads of things in english too - but the children were in a strange mood and I could not face the struggle of trams etc with bickering children. So, we have had a morning at home, and I had a chance to post - hurrah!

Just time for a quick post (famous last words)... we're at my ILs' this weekend, but I've brought my laptop to get some work done so am sneaking in a little MN time before the Jause.

platanos Lovely to see you back on here! Very of your big library with lots of English things; I joined our small one for a year, but didn't bother renewing my membership as I'd read everything they had in English that I wanted to. Have you decided whether to keep going with Wolf Hall, btw?
Also forgot to say that I've just discovered you can get vegan cheese at Merkur - Frischkäse and also mozzarella, which is called something like mozzarisella.

English Hope your DS is on the mend soon.

cheas / Vegans I think holidaying in Austria would be extremely tricky as a vegan; it would probably be just about doable in Vienna, but the rest of the country is more backward would be more difficult. The range of vegetarian and vegan products here is definitely improving, but I'm not sure attitudes are keeping up... and going out for a meal is difficult enough as a vegetarian.

Nutella Good news on the cot and changing table; hope the flat pack assembly isn't too painful!

I can't get overly excited about Greek food either, although the atmosphere at our local one (only just down the road, a big advantage) is great and they do a very nice tzatziki starter. I actually found a veggie main course (omelette) on the menu yesterday - not sure whether it's new or whether I'd overlooked it before. I was put off omelettes for ages after eating them day in day out on a school trip to Greece (the only veggie option most of the time), but enough time has passed for me to be able to face them again now.

What is Merkur, LT? I would love to find some vegan cheese!

Thanks, cheas, well, I will try to only answer any questions, rather than go on about it! :)

Hi, platanos, are you a namechanger, or we're you on here before I joined?

English, hope your little one is feeling better today.

If anyone has a moment, can you recommend or find me a nice version of The Nussknacker und Mausekönig, aimed at young children. I'd like one with nice illustrations, and ideally an accompanying CD for the music, though I suppose I could buy them separately. I think this is nice www.amazon.de/Der-Nussknacker-Ein-zauberhaftes-Puppentheater/dp/3831021996/?qid=1351993398&ie=UTF8&ref=sr_1_12&sr=8-12 but am wondering if there is anything better? Danke!

Witches It's an Austrian supermarket chain and has a vegan range (as does Billa, another Austrian supermarket - they're both part of the Rewe group), but I don't think they have any stores in Germany. I would offer to send you some cheese but am not sure how well it would travel!

We came back from my ILs slightly earlier than planned as DH had a bit of a falling out with SIL, but I think he enjoyed the rest of his birthday. I also managed to get most of my work done while we were away, which is good as I didn't particularly want to work while DD1 is off school today and tomorrow. DS will be out of school after the 3rd lesson (and DD2 after the 4th) this morning, which would have meant a shorter working day anyway, as the RE teacher is ill yet again.

linzer hope it wasn't a real big fallout. Good that you got to finish all your work though. Does the school have a Hort attatched for dc if botrh parents work outside the home? Must be a nightmare to organise after school care with those school hours.

platanos the vegan week ended yesterday. We had a lovely aubergine and tomato curry with dahl and basmati rice that everyone ate. Dd stuck to it the whole week but says for now she doesn't want to officially be vegan (she took a sesame roll with cream cheese to school with her) but I've discovered that it's not that difficult to eat vegan and definately not more expensive (as I thought it would be) and I have quite a few healthy vegan meals that I can put down and even the whole family will eat them so we'll be unofficially keeping quite abit of the week of veganism. We've got some tofu sauasages to try this week (dd's freind said to try them!) and some gemüse bratlinge.

cheaspicks I'd be interested in that tzatziki recipe - was it good?

Back to school today, both dc were up before me and I had a quiet laugh in bed as I know it won't last! By the end of the week I'll be waking them again. At least they're motivated for a day or two! I also have a bet on with them that they fall asleep this afternoon, they say no they won't, they can cope perfectly well with going to bed late.

Morning all!

Linzer What you said about Germans being more aware of what they eat than Austrians is interesting. I´ve met quite a few German vegetarians, but they have mostly been from the former West, or at least very highly educated and well-travelled. (Incidentally, someone asked me recently whether I knew any vegetarians who hadn´t been to university. I had to answer no, although I know plenty who stopped eating meat before they were old enough to go!)

People around here seem mostly incredibly dim about food - "isn´t it funny, my 10 month old loves chocolate" or MIL thinking it´s fine to give DD huge quantities of biscuits because they are made with organic spelt, organic rice syrup and organic hydrogenated palm oil instead of flour, sugar and butter (actually she would be happy to give dd huge quantities of the other kind of biscuit too, but she thinks I wouldn´t be - the idea that a three yo might be fine not eating for three hours between meals doesn´t seem to have occurred to her).

antique Hope you enjoy the book. I´d love to reread it, but I think my sister has lost my copy . I still haven´t looked up those links for you, but if you can´t find them, just shout. I think googling "truth about sugar" would probably bring them up. Robert Lustig´s lecture is on Youtube "Sugar - the Bitter Truth", but I haven´t watched it, it´s 90 min long! Anyway, the articles are probably more interesting and balanced.

platanos lovely to "see" you again on here . (I used to be silken btw). What made your DH decide to go vegan? One of the dads complained that there was too much meat on the kiga menu at our recent Elternbeirat - I was really pleased, but also annoyed that it was automatically taken more seriously because he was a man saying it.

english I sort of wish I´d done JET - a friend of mine did and was also glad she had, but I can imagine that the culture shock and loneliness must be significantly more than I went through moving here (and that was bad enough!) I had a Japanese boyfriend for a few years, so I was fairly immersed in ex-pat Japanese culture for a while, but my Japanese friends kept telling me that they weren´t typical because typical Japanese wouldn´t move abroad . Oddly, I don´t really have any great desire to go on holiday to Japan, unless I could go and visit a friend there, but the idea of living there for a few years still appeals (in a different life, of course!)

nutella if you´ve got a food processor it`s pretty easy to make hummus! The hardest part for me is finding tahini, but you can buy it on Amazon if necessary. DD has always loved it (she used to say the bear in "Where´s Spot?" was eating it .

ploom do you fancy a shopping/coffee meet-up at some point in the next few weeks? I need to buy some black trousers.

admylin is your vegan week over now? Did you make a layered biriyani? I only realised a couple of weeks ago that real biriyani is nothing like what they serve you in restaurants .

Hello to anyone I´ve missed.

x-posted, ad. Vegan tzatziki was delicious - even DH said so. Would go well with Gemüsebratlinge I think!

1 lb peeled, seeded and grated cucumber (I used about 2/3 of a cucumber and didn´t peel it)
1 cup raw cashews
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp lemon juice
pepper to season

Squeeze as much water out of the cucumber as possible, retaining the liquid in a bowl. Combine half the cucumber and all the other ingredients in a food processor. Add 1 to 3 tbsp of reserved cucumber juice to get desired consistency - like creamy hummus - and then stir in rest of grated cucumber.

I think processing the cashews on their own at the beginning might make it a bit easier. Or grinding them if that would work. You could put more garlic in if you like of course, and add fresh chopped herbs at the end - mint or dill - if you have them.

admylin The DC bouncing out of bed when they first went back to school didn't last here, either; they managed it again when the clocks went back but the long weekend has put paid to it now.

Yes, the school has a Hort (although not many children go to it), but I'm not sure what would happen in a case like today as it doesn't normally open until after the 4th hour. There are quite a few non-Catholics in DS's class and the two who go to Hort have to go into another class until Hort opens on the days they have RE.

The falling out was over something quite petty - DH's niece wants to come and visit us (according to SIL; niece doesn't really speak to us directly). We said that weekday afternoons are too stressful but she'd be welcome to come on a Friday afternoon or a weekend. However, this is no good as niece goes home from Thursday until Monday morning (I'm tempted to make a comment about Austrian university students here but will restrain myself) and we are obviously being very awkward. I didn't even realise it was a huge issue until SIL stormed out when we were in the middle of discussing it and didn't speak to us again before we left.

cheas My MIL seems to think that the DC will starve unless they eat every 10 minutes. And organic sweets are not just fine, but actually good for you. I was to see the jars of chocolate Gute Nacht Brei when we first moved here and also by the amount of sweet things considered acceptable as an evening meal (pancakes with Nutella, for example) - fine as an occasional treat, but DS used to have something sweet as a main course at KiGa most weeks.

All the vegetarians I know are university educated, including the single Austrian one - apart from my Mum, who is far stricter than I am (with wine etc.). This may be skewed by the fact that most of my friends have been to university, however (including the ones here, none of whom are veggie - with the exception of platanos, although as a non-Austrian she doesn't count ).

Interesting what you said about the Japanese who travel not being typically Japanese. I think DH is the same; he's often very about the Austrian ways of doing things and typical Austrian attitudes - think we've had the sudern auf hohem Niveau discussion on here before. I may have influenced him a little too, of course.

Absolutely agree the people from most countries who travel properly (as in and try to integrate somewhat, not just go on holiday or perch on the edge of a culture on an ex-pat package with a finite, short term return date) are not usually typical of their nationality, probably is true for most or all nationalities, not just Japanese. Well off "typical" Japanese do travel of course - the absolute typical honeymoon is a 2 week whistle stop tour of the whole of Europe, in which they'll see about 6 cities in 5 or 6 countries, take a lot of photos and buy lots of expensive souvenirs (as in a bone china tea set to remind them of England not a plastic Big Ben... :) ) The couples who do that may then not travel again at all, or perhaps will do again in retirement, as actually taking your holiday entitlement is heavily frowned upon. The only people most foreigners will make a genuine connection with in Japan are the atypical, more adventurous or alternative Japanese, who are in the minority but of course exist :)

I haven't thought much about my time in Japan in years, but things that come back to me are the "No gaijin" signs on restaurants, bars and nightclubs (though they would usually let a lone female foreigner who was with a group of Japanese in, they often wouldn't let a western looking male in even if he spoke fluent Japanese - I heard all sorts of explanations from "foreigners eat and drink too much" in all you can eat places to "foreigners cause fights" in bars and night clubs) . Also the frequently used term "Christmas Cake" for any pretty but unmarried woman over 25.... :O

Linzer some people get upset in the strangest ways, your SIL sounds a bit crazy from that story!

On the food issue - if you have been to uni it does often seem most of your friends will have... I don't actually know many veggies - my foster sister was veggie for about 10 or 15 years but changed her mind in her mid 20s and has returned to meat with a gusto, marrying a butcher and working in the organic meat industry herself! She did go to uni... Here in Bavaria people (I'm thinking mums of young children) seem to go one of two ways - either eyebrow raising quantities of gummi bears, choc and biscuits for preschoolers or the very extreme alternative with everything but organic, unprocessed (and even then nothing that anyone in the history of time has ever had an allergy to - no strawberries or oranges being popular choices) being allowed to cross their child's lips until they lose control or the will to live start Kindergarten at least - the no birthday cake brigade :O

Got to go and pick DD up from her first recorder lesson now, she walked there with a friend after school hope it has all gone according to plan!

DS2 seems better today, his fever was gone by yesterday lunch time, and although he slept restlessly he seems pretty much normal today, thanks for asking :)

cheas & Linzer My ILs seem to think that DS will wither and die if he doesn't have a huge bottle of baby milk every half an hour. They are also not happy with the fact that he has his milk from a cup now instead of a bottle. Never mind Karies, not letting him suckle on a bottle all day and night is tantamount to child abuse in their eyes. (They conveniently forget their constant accusations that he was having too much milk when he was smaller and bottle fed, along with me obviously starving him by not replacing as much milk as possible with pureed carrot when he was tiny.)

I can't remember who mentioned it upthread but Rewe now sell humous and you can get tahini in Edeka.

English Glad your DS is feeling better. How did your DD's recorder lesson go?

cheas I'm really enjoying that book - thank you for the recommendation!

admylin Glad vegan week went well. Do you think you'll continue with it even if the DC don't?

platanos Hope you had a nice time at the library!

Witches I can't remember exactly but I think Alnatura (or DM as they stock the Alnatura range too) had some vegan cheese. I'll have a proper look next time I'm there. It might just have been lactose-free as opposed to vegan, I'm not sure if I'm getting mixed up with Rewe having lactose-free cheese now.
I'll have a look anyway and let you know. (Least helpful post of the day.)

Hello to everyone else!

Linzer What a strange thing to fall out over! I hope they make up soon.