Sausages, sausages, sausages

A week into the tournament and I haven’t written about the food! It’s not what you think, that there isn’t much to write home about...

A week into the tournament (and 10 days in Germany) and I haven’t written about the food! It’s not what you think, that there isn’t much to write home about; there’s sausage, sausage, bread, potatoes and more sausage. Oliver Twist’s dream come true: ’Food, glorious food/hot sausage and mustard’, as the musical went.

Rare has been the day when I’ve been able to have a cheap, rupee-friendly meal without sausage (or mustard). Admittedly a lot of my exposure has been at media centre canteens aimed at less discerning palates — and much of it is food to go — but even so the lack of variety has been astonishing. In Berlin, I tried their famous currywurst; it’s nothing more than a sausage cut into pieces, doused in a brown Worcester-ish sauce and with some Madras curry powder sprinkled on top. Yours for 3 euro.

And they don’t do hot dogs here. Ask for a sausage in a roll and you will get a fat wiener inside a round roll, eighty per cent of the meat sticking out from either side. Makes for a very untidy meal — and not very satisfying, given that the bread is chewy enough to give you stress fracture of the jawbone.

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That’s another complaint I have; the bread is really tough. Oh for some soft white Indian bread; this stuff is hard and leathery on the outside and not less chewy inside. I can eat bread in any form, even dough that’s barely risen, but this has got me beat. Maybe it’s best fresh; a special treat while staying in Augsburg was waking up to the smell of fresh breze (pretzels); soft and not too chewy, and heavenly when hot with butter and jam.

What is good, and rupee-friendly, is the ice-cream (eis, as they call it). Try the fruit flavours; the strawberry and peach and raspberry. fresh and delicious. A huge scoop for 80 cents, which is roughly what I’d pay at the Gelato near the local multiplex back home. There are, obviously, other delights that leave me cold. The beer, for one; I must confess, at the risk of being disowned by all my friends, that I’ve just managed one beer while here. And that, too, was forced on me by my host in Augsburg, who almost had a fit when I was thirsty and asked for water. The beer is everywhere in Germany, in various colours and consistencies, served in various kinds of glasses, from the big to the gigantic; this is paradise for the average British footer fan! The fruits of the growing wine industry are not in much evidence. Finally I know what vegetarian colleagues go through when touring Pakistan!

Japan four years ago was far more interesting; maybe it’s because I had more time to explore and experiment. Four years older, protecting one’s bones from the weight of a laptop and other baggage takes precedence over pampering one’s stomach. In any case, the eyes are feasting on the football.