Weekends in Wolfsburg

Markets, or as we know them in the US, farmers markets, are very common in German towns. Our neighborhood, Detmerode, is no exception. Local farmers come to the mini-"shopping center" across the street from school every Thursday and Saturday to sell their goods. More often than not, their products are organic, which is pretty cool. The weekend market brings about nine different vendors. It's not very big, nor is the selection expansive, but going down for groceries is always an enjoyable experience. We try to go every Saturday to pick up fresh eggs, bread, and some produce.

Here is a view of the market.

Typical things you find are squash, mushrooms, eggs, Brussels sprouts, apples, carrots, celery root, and lots of different kinds of potatoes.

I was extremely amused when I saw that most of the vendors use weights to calculate how much product you buy. I'm not very farmers market savvy so maybe this is normal, but seeing that definitey brought me back a couple hundred years. If you look closely at the middle of the picture you can see the weights and scales.

No German market is complete without someone selling some sort of bratwurst.

Emphasis on some kind.

I was hoping that the sign above the lady would be more clear, but unfortunately the print is too small and it's very awkward to whip out a camera at this very small market place in the first place. Anyway, the very first line says "Pferdwurst".

Yup. Very early on in my Rosetta's Stone experience I learned that "Pferd" means horse in German.

Anytime we ask people (who don't live in Detmerode) about it, they all get very squeamish -- which is not surprising. In Detmerode, however, it's not so abnormal. Eating horse meat is a practice that originated around the war era when there wasn't enough traditional protiens around.

Do you think we tried it?

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Hesitantly, but yes, we did.


Very typical German food is something called "Currywurst", which is bratwurst smothered with German ketchup (it's sweeter and tastes a little like barbeque sauce), and sprinkled with curry powder. Sometimes the brat is cut up into small pieces. I think this is because they don't make breads that are made for sandwiching sausages or brats like American hotdog buns. It's very strange when you receive a round kaiser roll with your very long sausage inside. Anyway, above is Mike eating Pferd-Currywurst. We shared it. After you forget the fact that it is horse meat, it's not so bad. It doesn't taste quite like normal sausage, but it's not overtly strange tasting either. At the same time, it's not a food I will miss when back in the states.