Metzger in Steinbach, Germany. From Flickr user aniika.

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

Previously-- Midnight Sausage: Lima, Peru

Rogacki Delicatessen in Berlin Germany

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour until I run out. Please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

[via loremipsum]

Previously - Midnight Sausage: Granville Island, Vancouver

Last week we wrote about the news that Italian pig farmers were going on strike. It turns out that they're not the only ones.

This weekend's New York Times reported that as of last Tuesday dairy farmers in Germany are striking. It's a classic case of supply and demand. The EU decided to raise milk quotas, leading to more supply and lower prices. Meanwhile feed and fuel prices have gone way up, which has put the pinch on German dairy farmers. In response, they're attempting to create demand by striking.

However, as the NYT points out, this situation is a little different than the Italian pig farmers, because these dairy farmers must continue to milk the cows. Because their goal is to keep the milk out of the market, they end up pouring it out, literally dumping food down the drain. It's an unfortunate situation, especially since worldwide there are so many people who are struggling with food shortages and hunger.

[via Serious Eats]

Jamie Oliver is known for his super fresh, simple cooking, so it's no wonder that he says he would never cook a heavy meal for a date.

In an interview for Men's Health, the German edition of the magazine, he said that heavy foods eaten during a date won't leave much room for more, later, of you know what I mean. The thing is that Germans like heavy food, such as kloesse dumplings.

I guess that'd be like telling an American not to have steak and potatoes for the main course while on a date. But then, as this article notes, Jamie is married to a model, so maybe he knows a thing or two.

Do you feel like you never get good service at a restaurant? Are you impatient with the inefficiency of the wait staff? Then here is a restaurant that you would love. It's called 'sBaggers and it is the world's first fully automated restaurant (except the cooking).

'sBaggers was opened recently in Nuremberg, Germany by business man Michael Mack, who wanted to "create a whole new restaurant system." The patrons order from touch screens and the food and drinks come to the table via a system of metal tracks. It looks like a roller coaster system has been set up inside the restaurant.

You can check out a video of how the restaurant works here. Did I mention that you can use the touchscreen consoles to send emails and text messages? When did they say they were opening one in the US?

[Via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The Italians must be pissed.

The European Court Justice ruled that Germany can keep calling that hard, salty, crumbly cheese often grated on top of pasta and pizza "parmesan." Italy and the European Commission had filed suit against Germany for labeling their non-Italian-made cheese as Parmesan even though it had not been made in the Italian region of Parma.

Wait, I'm pretty sure that the grated "Parmesan" they sell in those green-topped plastic bottles at the grocery store for $2.99 isn't from Parma either.

It was a chocolate raid, and we're not talking about Oprah's Book Club storming through the candy store during that time of the month.

We mentioned before that there was a suspicion that chocolate makers in the US were colluding (for those of us who slept through our Econ 101 classes, that means they agreed to fix prices). Apparently, it's a global thing, as Germany's antitrust organization raided and seized documents from the offices of Nestlé, Kraft, Mars, and Ritter Sport last week. The Federal Cartel Office had reason to believe that the candy makers agreed to not undercut one another in raising prices of their products. What information comes out of the seized documents has yet to be seen.

Bummer. I was hoping they marched into those offices and ran off with crates of Mars bars.

Recently, German researchers fed lab mice separate "human" and "chimp" diets, and within just two weeks, were able to notice distinct psychological and genetic differences in the rodents.

There were three different diets: a raw food-only diet; meals from the researchers' local cafeteria; and a pure fast-food diet. The researchers found a huge difference in the livers of the mice with a chimp diet versus those with a human diet (I'm scared to hear about the difference in their hearts and arteries!) They found thousands of differences in the genes expressed in the mouse livers, which they think may be caused by our differences in diets.

...You got all that? Okay. The scientists also found that said genes seemed to evolve faster than other genes.

So, basically, our ancestors' adoption of meat and cooked foods may have shaped us into the carnivorous, brownie-eating, beer-guzzling beings we are today.

Warning: the following story doesn't give you permission to start downing dark chocolate by the case.

As someone who has high blood pressure, I welcome any new news that eating certain types of food can help bring the numbers down. Of course, if I just exercised more I could lose some weight and that would probably take care of 97% of my problem, but in case that doesn't happen, I like hearing news like this. Researchers in Germany have discovered that small portions of dark chocolate might help people who are in the early stages of high blood pressure. 24 women and 20 men, aged 56 to 73, were given both white and dark chocolate over 18 weeks. The white chocolate didn't have much effect at all.

I'd write more but I have to run out to the store and get some dark chocolate.

We are not big fans of Burger King's creepy ad mascot, The King, and we know that we're not the only ones who feel a little uneasy when his commercials come on. Burger King, and the various advertising firms that represent them, likes to take their promotions into that extreme zone, though, so perhaps we should just be glad that their advertising isn't worse than it already is.

For example, take a look at this Burger King Germany wrapper, which contains instructions for building a throne to your Whopper out of ketchup packets and french fries. According to the person who photographed the wrapper and submitted it to Instructables, the directions say that the throne is for resting your burger and worshiping it.

Let's be glad that they haven't incorporated this idea into their King-centric US advertising yet. Can you imagine how strange the commercials would get?

[via tfs]

Schlichte Steinhager Dry Gin 40%abv / 80 proof is a traditional Steinhager gin from Germany and the original and world's oldest brand of Steinhager. Made in Steinhagen, Germany under the German purity laws. Steinhager is made from three and only three ingredients; triple distilled grain neutral spirits, water, and juniper berries and... that's it, nothing else. It's rarely seen in the US but is unmistakable in its tall brown ceramic bottle. Currently there are only two brands of Steinhager being made, I think the other is called Schinken Hager, which I have never seen and couldn't find any info on it.

The aroma is that of light juniper with the faintest of faint hints of butterscotch and caramel. The taste is basically the same, light juniper flavor and faint hints of butterscotch and caramel. This is so light and one dimensional that it barely tasted like a gin. More like the ghost of a gin. I thought that Bulldog Gin was light, but this stuff was barely there. It's crisp and clean and that's all there is to it folks. I wonder if I'll ever finish the bottle, or will it become a ghost gin, haunting my bar forever. End of story.

The German beer supply is in danger as a result of British World Cup fans' unquenchable thirst. According to a recent article in The Mirror, the 70,000 England fans visiting Nuremberg drank about 17 pints each-roughly 1.2 million in all. One calculation put that at 200 pints per minute. "The hardest thing for the breweries is keeping up with the thirst of the English," said one brewery spokesman. I'm a little curious about how they attribute beer sales to certain groups of fans. Sure, a beer vendor can say, "Wow, the people in the ___ jerseys were sure poundin' em'," but how do you pin large figures on one group? Surely those vendors must have been selling to other fans as well. Nevertheless, there are the personal accounts. "Never have I seen so many drink so much in such little time," said one bartender. As Andrew noted, his people are a hungry bunch, too.

[Via Fark]

After years of being stuck with a reputation for being a country  that loves bland, overcooked foods (and fish and chips), a new study shows that the British are the most adventurous eaters in Europe. More than 70% of Brits believe it's important to be open-minded about trying new foods and, in fact, that seeking out these foods is important as well. A full 50% of the British, according to the survey, regularly went out of their way to try new foods. Only 44% of French, 34% of Germans and a low 25% of Spanish eaters were likely to look to non-traditional foods.

Critics might say that there was no where to go but up as the British started moving away from "traditional" fare. The issue, however, isn't the food itself, but the acceptance of the idea that food from other countries and parts of the world might have as much, or more, to offer.

Too bad the study didn't include the US. I would have been interested to see where we fell along the continuum, though I'm fairly sure we wouldn't have topped the charts.

Those lucky enough to be in Germany for the World Cup next month will no doubt want to sample that country's traditional food and drink. With that, ahem, goal in mind The Guardian published a guide to the 12 cities that will play host to the tournament.

In addition to general descriptions of the cities, "halftime snacks" are listed for each. After watching the first match in Hamburg, the paper recommends ending a night of clubbing with a vist to the Fischmarkt in St. Pauli at 5AM for some smoked eel and Alsterwasser (a mixture of beer and lemonade). Moving on to Berlin the pick is Moroccan restaurants, which are all the rage, and, of course the city's famous currywurst.

I won't be anywhere near Stuttgart for the sixth match but the brezen, buttered pretzels filled with salami or cheese, sound mighty tasty. The local specialties of Kaiserslauten (match seven) are slightly less mouthwatering. Anyone for saumagen, pig's stomach filled with potatoes, or pferdwurst, horsemeat sausages? Hanover, host to the last match, has something I'd love to try, however. The Pfannkuchenhaus (Calenberger Strasse), serves up pancakes baked over an open fire with solid maple syrup. IHOP menu planners take heed!

[image: Football.co.uk]

When people are on a holiday, they start to say things like "it's ok, you're on vacation!" and "you should be able to enjoy yourself!" These statements are innocuous in general, but when they're applied to the second piece of chocolate cream pie on your plate during dessert, it can be problematic. People gain weight when they're on vacation and in the weeks leading up to it in a sort of pre-vacation indulgence binge. A hotel in Germany, the Hotel Ostfriesland, has an unusual pricing structure that was motivated by one guest's desire to lose weight. The owner charges by the kilogram.

It all started when a guest complained that she was gaining weight every year and, when she dropped 77 pounds in a year, joked that she should get a discount. And she did. The owner of the hotel has everyone hop on a scale to determine their room rate. Of course, he does have a maximum fee of €39 per night for a single room, which, at his rate of .50 euros per kg, comes out to be about 172 pounds. If a guest weighs less than that, they get a discount. If they refuse to get on the scale at all, there is a €51 (224 pound) double-room charge, though no one has yet refused.

At the moment, the charging structure appears to be working. The hotel owner said that he has had no complaints and that many people enjoy the fact that they can get a discount, sometimes going as far as stripping down (the men, not the women) to try and lower their rate further.