Breadtime Stories
Daniela Wedel | Nomad’s View
The end of summer vacation in Italia was here. Finito—the endless days of sun and laughter of young and old. Over are the unorganized days spent together with family and friends. It was time to go home. Back home again, back north, to the other side of the Alps. We had to get up in the middle of the night. Our parents hoped we would fall asleep again and be quiet in the car if we started our drive during the night. My brother and I found ourselves packed in the back, seats down, with blankets, toys and pillows to continue our “buona notte”. We certainly tried. But memory feels as if it was all too exciting to sleep that night.
Instead we sat and looked out the window and glimpsed the Italian countryside passing from the Mediterranean to Alpine forests. If we could have just enjoyed the night drive with something to munch on. But nein! No eating or drinking allowed in the car, except on the Autobahn, when the roads were straight. (This is a time when there were no cupholders in the car.) Too many crumbs and smearing, packages clumsily opened, little munchy noises and drinks spilled and many more scenarios made our parents forbid us to eat in the car. All this kind of adult-reasoning.
The curves, passes, small roads and switch backs over the Alps seemed endless, endless to starvation.And so the inevitable started. “Are we there yet?” “Soon!” “We are hungry! We can’t wait!” ”Are we at the big highway yet?”. Why does time not fly when one is hungry? Eventually, what seemed to be an eternity, came to an end. And finally we arrived on the “straight road”. Fooood! You can imagine the challenge of keeping eager hands away from the food when the car was filled with the aroma of bread, Italian breadsticks and cheese. Scents of things we had enjoyed daily for the last 3 weeks on our vacation in Rimini. Finally we could go for it and munch.
When we arrived at home in Munich, there were a lot of crumbs on the back seats, but there were still enough grissini breadsticks, cheese and other Italian munchies left to share with each other for one more “Italian Brotzeit” at home at our kitchen table.
I took this picture in 2019 on one of the last guided tours before a long break from touring pre-Covid. Up in the Dolomite mountains, sitting outside a Chalet and enjoying a wonderful platter with local cheeses and grissini. The memories of our drive back over the Alps came back into my mind. The curvy roads just a few kms away from where I sat in the sun. Image | Nomad’s View
Summer continued beyond vacation time and with more Brotzeit . Brotzeit is a very German, or rather Bavarian, meal concept. Breadtime, or time for bread, or is it time with bread, or time about bread, time of bread …? Whatever it is, the communality is that bread is the basic ingredient. And it is true, as far as additional elements to that meal, one can be as creative as a culinary magician.
Brotzeit = Breadtime
Image | Nomad’s View
Generally we can say that a Brotzeit is a cold meal, so maybe rather a summer meal. Brotzeit is something many families in Germany would have on a mid-week evening as dinner. In Bavaria, on a warm summer evening, you meet a lot of people in the beer gardens who have a Brotzeit instead of a big meal. In certain places you can even bring your own food from home and you just have to buy the drinks. A Brotzeit can be seen in other countries as a snack or tapas, even though Germans consider it a full meal. The fact that besides bread there can be many different foods involved justify that comparison of tapas or mezes.
This picture shows a traditional Bavarian Brotzeit and one that could be called a Turkish Brotzeit-Meze. This picture was taken on my unforgettable stay in Istanbul and after a long day walking it felt perfect to have just a bite at home. The base is the Turkish Simitbread, or sesame bread. It is boiled like a bagel and twisted in circles of dough and then dipped in sweetened water before dredging in sesame seeds. The result is a crisp exterior and a light, delicate and tender interior. Maybe something called a pretzel comes to mind reading this description? We combined the fresh baked Simit with ripe figs, delicately sprinkled with olive oil, (Have you ever tried this?) strawberries from Turkey, butter, and as a next course, some different types of cheese. Image | Nomad’s View
Who loves pretzels, or rather, who does not love a Brezn? My parents are from Munich where I grew up in the 80s and moved away in 2000. Visiting Munich today as a tour guide with guests from all over the world makes me realize how much the city has changed. Happily, one thing has not changed at all: the taste of a fresh Brezn (Bavarian for pretzel) and the pleasure it gives me. The texture of biting into the crunchy outside and melting into the soft fluffy inner part makes time disappear.
“Die Brezn ist den Bayern in the Wiege gelegt”, which essentially translates to being weaned on Pretzels in Bavaria.
Maybe that is where this feeling comes from: having been a small child, still in a stroller, being given Pretzels by the baker to make teething less painful and having something to munch on. Another thing that hasn’t changed is the joy of dipping your Brezn into some typical sweet mustard. Now you know where Auntie Annie and followers got the idea of putting “sweet mustard flavor” in dough. Eating with my parents in a traditional Munich Gasthaus also reminds me of my brother and I passing our boredom building Bierfuizlhouses (beer coaster houses in Bavarian dialect). Impatiently we waited wishing we could go somewhere more exciting than a traditional restaurant.
Brezn, anyone?
Image | Nomad’s View
More exciting as a child in the 80’s meant going to a self service restaurant, which was a brand new concept, or even more exotic, McDonald’s. Yes, McDonald’s. A taste sensation you never forget. I am certainly not advertising for McDonald’s, but honestly … the SMELL, the TASTE … We all recognize it! Walking around in any city of the world we can smell McDonald’s before we even see it.
Mentioning McDonald’s in the context of bread is something rather curious and maybe even courageous, and perhaps wrong. But I'd like to do it anyway. McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Munich, Germany onDecember 4, 1971, very close to our flat. Once or twice a month my mom would pick us up from school and we would drive to McDonald’s and have lunch. She ate a McRib with extra barbecue sauce, my brother, a cheeseburger and I had a Mc Fish. We never liked the pickle inside and took it out. For us it was a special meal, something new and different.
McDonald’s in Abu Dhabi
Image | Nomad’s View
After more than 20 years, on a “late night out” in Abu Dhabi, I revisited my Mc Donald’s childhood memory and had a McFish. What can I tell you? The taste and consistency of the bun was exactly what I remembered. I don't want to tell you to go to McDonald’s but if you are looking for something that hasn’t changed in these confusing and uncertain times consider a trip to McDonald’s and let me know how it went.
I find memories of taste and smell are fleeting. Rather than a trip to McDonald’s, try remembering the smell of freshly-baked bread to wake up your olfactory system. I am sure you won’t bedisappointed.
