American Food According to Germany.

I often wander around my local German supermarkets struggling to remember what the German words are for the foods I need.  I stand in the aisles trying to use my translator app on words that don’t always translate and usually end up confused.  But every once in a while I’ll see a food with “American” splattered across the packaging and I’ve just got to try it.  Not only do I miss American food items that we can’t find in Germany, but I also have a fascination with the German view of American food.  So far I’ve found “American” hamburgers (and buns), pizza, onion rings, sandwich bread, brownies, muffins, and various sauces (not the healthiest foods, certainly).  I’ve taste tested everything I’ve found and here are the results.

American Hamburgers.

 

 

We bought a box of four frozen 125g burgers (~ ¼ lbs.) that promised that they were the “best beef for perfect hamburgers”.  The only frozen burger I’ve ever had before was a Bubba burger that was 100% Angus beef and 2 lbs., so this burger is already failing to fill some big shoes.  It’s also interesting that the box only had four burgers; I would expect to see 6 – 10 burgers per box in an American freezer selection.

We also found American hamburger buns, which are the only kind of hamburger buns available, as far as I can tell.  I was quite pleased that the number of hamburger buns actually matched the number of patties I had – I don’t think has ever happened to me before.   Usually it’s a never ending cycle of leftover buns, then leftover burgers, and so on.  The buns were not pre-sliced, however, and we made a huge mess attempting to slice them ourselves.  While the American burgers were bigger in size that the regular burgers that we also purchased, they were smaller than the buns.

 

 

 

Mr. Meena and I were rather unimpressed with the hamburgers.  There wasn’t any strong beefy flavor to them.  We think there was a hint of some spice in them, though, perhaps curry.  Overall, they tasted a little too much like cardboard to us and we’ll likely make our own or go out for burgers next time.

 

American Style Pizza.

 

 

The box labeled this as a supreme style pizza with mozzarella cheese, salami, mushrooms, ham, and tomato.  Now, for starters, most American pizza chains feature pork, beef, mushrooms, peppers, and onions on their supreme pizza.  So, we’re already a bit off the mark.

This pizza was a disaster from start to finish.  First, we burned the bottom and most of the edges.  Second, when I took it out of the oven the cheese was completely detached from the pizza and went everywhere.  I tried to push it back to the middle where it belongs but my efforts were mostly hopeless.

 

 

Mr. Meena took the first bite and shook his head at me.  He will eat almost anything, so I knew this was going to be bad.  I tried to eat a whole piece for the sake of writing about it, but I couldn’t do it.  After a few minutes the smell of the pizza was even starting to make me nauseous.  Not only is this pizza not American in style, but it’s not worth being sold to anyone for consumption, ever.

 

American Onion Rings.

 

 

I very rarely eat onion rings and I’ve never had frozen ones before, but Mr. Meena has tried all kinds so I deferred to his critique for this food item.  He told me that they were large, thick, and incredibly fresh, especially for a frozen product.  He definitely plans to have them again and I liked how sweet they were.  It would have been more American if we had fried them instead of baking them, but we were happy nonetheless.

 

American Sandwich Bread.

 

 

I’ve been purchasing the regular bread to use for toasting and sandwiches since we arrived.  When I found the American bread from the same brand I figured it was the perfect time to do a comparison.  However, the American bread tasted exactly the same to me.  I believe the only difference here is the size, since the American slice is quite a bit larger.  I think that says a lot about the American tendency to supersize foods.

I wouldn’t say there’s really anything American about this bread, aside from the size.  It’s not like the typical white bread or white-wheat bread I’m used to seeing in grocery stores.  The bread doesn’t contain corn syrup or many preservatives, so perhaps that’s why it doesn’t taste the same.  It’s certainly more convenient for making sandwiches, though, so I might purchase it again.

 

American Style Brownies.

 

 

By far the neatest thing about this package of brownie mix was that it came with a Backform (baking tin).

 

 

I love when I don’t have to scrub a pan after I’m done baking.

I gathered my ingredients according to the instructions on the box:

• 360g Backmischung (the powder mix)
• 6g Raspelschokolade (grated chocolate)
• 100g Butter
• 1 Ei (egg)
• 125 mL Wasser (water)

At this point we can already spot two things that aren’t very American.  Normally you’d add vegetable oil to a mix instead of butter and you’d have chocolate chips instead of gratings (and a greater quantity of chocolate).  Also, depending on the mix you might use two eggs instead of one.  But I followed the instructions exactly so that I’d know what the manufacturer intended the brownies to taste like.

 

 

While the brownies look fairly normal, they are definitely not up to the Betty Crocker standard (which is the most American brand, in my opinion).  There is no ooey gooey factor to them; they’re a bit dry and don’t have that thick chocolate fudge flavor that I am used to.  They are just okay, but the basic powder mix could always be supplemented to make them taste better.

I think the most American thing about the brownies is the pre-made mix.  Many Germans have a thing for cooking from scratch, especially when it comes to baked items.  I had a German friend tell me that I’d be pretty harshly judged in some social circles for using box mixes.  It’s quite uncommon to find pre-packaged cake or brownie mixes at all – and you can forget about cookie dough.

 

American Style Muffins.

 

 

Here are the ingredients necessary for this mix:

• 250g Backmischung (powder mix)
• 60g Schokostückchen (chocolate morsels)
• 2 Eier (eggs)
• 75mL Wasser (water)
• 125mL Speiseöl (cooking oil)

I personally feel like 125mL (a little more than half a cup) is way too much oil for one batch of muffins; I think it’s more normal to stick to ¼ cup.

But, like I did with the brownies, I followed the instructions so that I’d know the intended taste.  After I mixed everything together the smell of the cooking oil I used was pretty intense.  I ended up making six muffins instead of 12 because I only have a six muffin pan and I didn’t want to have go through the baking process twice.  This box came with paper muffin liners… which I found out after I purchased a box of muffin liners.  Oh well.

The muffins turned out quite delicious – as long as you can get past the oily aftertaste they leave on your tongue.  I was surprised to find that they were crispy throughout the whole muffin, but I actually liked it even better that way.  Mr. Meena asked for me to make them again, which I will happily do with significantly less oil.  While we enjoyed them I can’t say they were very American.  They lacked that puffy cake-like property and the dark chocolate shavings just aren’t the same as milk chocolate chips.

 

American Sauce.

 

 

I asked my Facebook followers if they thought this sauce was very American (most of them didn’t).  While many people think this sauce is like thousand island dressing, its main ingredients (tomatoes, shallots, and parsley) don’t exactly line up.  We tried this sauce on a couple different food items and didn’t like it at all.  It takes like someone tried to make a cheese dip but used fake cheese and didn’t follow the instructions properly.  Also, it’s just not sweet enough to qualify as a typical American condiment sauce.

 

American Dressing.

 

 

This dressing has more in common with thousand island dressing than the previous sauce did, since it contained ingredients such as lemon juice, mustard oil, and fresh herbs.  But it also has rapeseed oil, lean yogurt (presumably instead of mayonnaise), and “spirits”.   I don’t really like salads so I taste tested this one straight.  While it’s much fresher than most bottled dressings you’ll find in America, it has an overwhelmingly bitter taste.  I can’t think of any way to use it that would make it taste good.  Once again, it isn’t sweet enough to represent American dressing.

Overall, we loved the onion rings, tolerated the hamburgers, would try the brownies and muffins again with some modifications, felt pretty neutral about the bread, and ultimately threw out the pizza, sauce, and dressing.  I’d say that the American foods produced in Germany aren’t very similar to their true counterparts.  And how could they be?  Germany has much stricter food controls than the U.S., which mean that few food items can taste the same.  So I guess that this American will just keep dreaming about American comfort food instead of eating it.

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