Our Daily Bread

 

If the shelves look at bit empty, it’s because it’s already 10:30. They will be restocked with fresh products before lunch.

 

The ONLY shop open here on Sundays is the bakery.

Are you out food? Alcohol? Cigarettes? Too bad…you’ll have to wait until Monday. Are you sick and need some medication? Too bad, you’ll have to wait until Monday.

But, by golly you WILL have fresh bread products on your table seven days a week.

As I sort of mentioned the other day, Germans are obsessed with bread and other baked goods. If you are gluten-free here, you might as well be Satan.

 

This is McDonald’s! No wimpy, tasteless sesame seed bun here.

 

This town has a population of 188,000 with at least 100 official bakeries and probably another 100 places where you can buy (or get delivered) fresh, baked goods – like every grocery store, corner store, café and restaurant.

You are never more than a block from a bakery here (and that is no exaggeration), so it’s not a hardship to get your bread fresh every day or even twice a day.

And the bread is substantial and varied. It’s made of a variety of grains (and sometimes potatoes) and available in every imaginable shape, size, texture. Here, bread is not just a conveyor for fillings, it is food.

You’ve heard of the paleo diet? Well here, it’s all about the medieval diet — bread and beer. Throw in some meat and that’s 90% of the daily food intake.

Bread and other gluten products are part of every meal. Breakfast is coffee and fresh rolls or bread picked up from the nearest bakery every morning with jam or Nutella or cheese and/or sometimes cold cuts.

The bread basket also appears at the mid-day meal, though, as the largest meal of the day, there are also a host of other carbs to choose from. And some nice beer to wash it down with.

Then there is the 4:00pm coffee/cake/beer thing.

And then supper (around 7:00 pm) is more bread with perhaps some form of processed meat or a hunk of cheese. And some beer maybe.

Germany is ranked the largest bakery market in the EU and the fifth largest in the world. (with a population of only 83 million).

As my cousin, Patrick, says “brot ist liebe” (bread is love).

Thank goodness this area rife with l hills and dales so I can get in lots of cardio along with all that love.