Culinary Violence
In a clear attempt to make me write yet another cooking-related blog, Dad sent me his recipe for Violent Brownies. It's called this not because it was created for German-speaking and -ingredient-using bakers, but because of the delightfulness of German language. Since I am now awesome at mixing ingredients in German quantities and picking the number (I have a 1 in 8 chance!) to use on our oven, there is not really anything interesting to say about the baking of the brownies, other than that they are delicious.
The history of the brownie recipe, however, is more amusing, though anyone who has ever approached within a couple meters of anyone in my family probably has heard it:
One lovely day someways through our year living in Germany, my Dad finally perfected a recipe for baking brownies from scratch, from cooking chocolate and sugar and eggs and vannila sugar, etc., with all the amounts in grams and milliliters. He then proceeded to bake this recipe and distribute the fruits of this labor among our German friends, who had been hearing about the amazing chocolateyness that is American Brownies for quite a while. Predictably, the recipe was asked for, so my dad set out to translate it. One of the first instructions is to add sugar to the eggs, and beat the mixture together well. In German, "to beat together" might be directly translated as "zusammenschlagen." Or so my Dad thought. So when our German friends broke out laughing over their copies of the recipe, he didn't understand what was so funny. Was the amount of sugar just so ridiculous to a nation whose cakes are sometimes indistinguishable from their breads? Did they find it hilarious that you need to bake the batter for different amounts of time, depending on the size of the pan? No, it was just that my Dad had instructed them to put the eggs and sugar in a bowl and "punch them in the face." You are never taught idioms when you study a foriegn language; you learn them usually in embarassing situations and invariably too late.
As a German friend recently reminded me, the German word "pregnant" means roughly "very important," which has caused some touchy situations for German Au Pair girls in America. Similarly, the attempts of english-speakers to explain to the Spanish that something has caused them to become embarassed: the Spanish are confused, especially if the speaker is a man, since "embarazada" means "pregnant."
There are many more such examples, obviously, but the temperature dropped enough today for them to build a giant, usable ski slope in the middle of Potsdamer Platz (seriously! more on this later!), so I'm going somewhere indoors, preferably my apartment, and preferably with my "borrowed" cat curled up on my lap. Also, hopefully she does not attempt to attack my face, as has happened the last three times she has been in my lap. Please, someone tell me if I look like a mouse.
The history of the brownie recipe, however, is more amusing, though anyone who has ever approached within a couple meters of anyone in my family probably has heard it:
One lovely day someways through our year living in Germany, my Dad finally perfected a recipe for baking brownies from scratch, from cooking chocolate and sugar and eggs and vannila sugar, etc., with all the amounts in grams and milliliters. He then proceeded to bake this recipe and distribute the fruits of this labor among our German friends, who had been hearing about the amazing chocolateyness that is American Brownies for quite a while. Predictably, the recipe was asked for, so my dad set out to translate it. One of the first instructions is to add sugar to the eggs, and beat the mixture together well. In German, "to beat together" might be directly translated as "zusammenschlagen." Or so my Dad thought. So when our German friends broke out laughing over their copies of the recipe, he didn't understand what was so funny. Was the amount of sugar just so ridiculous to a nation whose cakes are sometimes indistinguishable from their breads? Did they find it hilarious that you need to bake the batter for different amounts of time, depending on the size of the pan? No, it was just that my Dad had instructed them to put the eggs and sugar in a bowl and "punch them in the face." You are never taught idioms when you study a foriegn language; you learn them usually in embarassing situations and invariably too late.
As a German friend recently reminded me, the German word "pregnant" means roughly "very important," which has caused some touchy situations for German Au Pair girls in America. Similarly, the attempts of english-speakers to explain to the Spanish that something has caused them to become embarassed: the Spanish are confused, especially if the speaker is a man, since "embarazada" means "pregnant."
There are many more such examples, obviously, but the temperature dropped enough today for them to build a giant, usable ski slope in the middle of Potsdamer Platz (seriously! more on this later!), so I'm going somewhere indoors, preferably my apartment, and preferably with my "borrowed" cat curled up on my lap. Also, hopefully she does not attempt to attack my face, as has happened the last three times she has been in my lap. Please, someone tell me if I look like a mouse.
posted by Katherine at 4:54 PM
1 Comments:
I must protest the slanderous allegation that my sending the recipe for "Gewalttätige Brownies" was an attempt to stimulate yet another cooking-related blog. Fact is, I sent it out of the purest of motives; 1)pity at your attempts to make choc chip cookies out of German ingredients in a lasagne pan, and 2)a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to write "Weinrich Couvertüre" in an email.
Still, it was nice to see the "Violent Brownies" story shared with people outside the two-meter zone.
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