landschaft

Last week on the radio I listened to a report that was really more of a sad fable, entitled “The Last Cow” about a village in the Swabian region and the decision of the last rancher there to ironically buy the farm and retire with no heirs to take over the family business, purportedly run since Roman times. The German title for the report (Der Letztes Küh) sounded like “the last coup” but the German word for coup d'etat or blow is the funner word Putsch.

It was a tragic narrative, since such a choice looks like it cannot be undone and abandoning agriculture is not something that one can recapture later on, and recounting personal memories of the slow disassembly and compartmentalisation of the community over the lifetimes of the people being interviewed. Though the end result is obvious—houses becoming things unto themselves and independent of any neighbourly infrastructure or else given up for convenience and opportunity, it is unclear what the anchorage is for these small villages. Beyond one farmer's nostalgia, which nonetheless establishes very true facts about the condition of such withering communities, there was formerly a brewery that incentivized young people to remain as well as all the supporting infrastructure, schools and churches. While it is a patent fact for the moment that Germany's agricultural bounty can still provide a lot—weekly markets and even supermarkets able to satisfy most needs produced locally, and a surplus, Bavaria, for instance, has still seen its agricultural experts halved within the past decade. It's hard to say what lesson that this sort of fable, repeated too often, is giving.

fish rissoles

Though we could have accomplished this delicious kitchen experiment without the aid of our new many-headed hydra of a food processor (ein Kuchenmaschine), I don't know that we would have attempted it otherwise—plus it was a good initial test workout for a lot of the machine's capabilities.

To make four good sized fish patties, one will need:

• 200 g of Salmon fillet (fresh or frozen)
• 200 g of Sea Bass (fresh or frozen)
• 4 – 6 small Spring Onions
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch, to taste, of Chili Powder
• 6 tablespoons of of fine breadcrumbs
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 1 bunch of fresh dill
• 2 tablespoons of margarine to fry the patties
• Some flour to coat the patties

In preparation, depending whether one uses fresh or frozen fish—as they tend to chop-up better in the food processor when slightly frosty, either freeze fresh fish for about an hour or allow frozen fish to thaw out for a couple hours. Dice the fish into smallish cubes, slice roughly the parsley and combine with the seasonings, breadcrumbs and the egg into the food processor and mix thoroughly. 

Get a frying pan ready with the margarine in the meantime and warm to medium heat. Form the mixture into four patties and roll in flour. Fry the patties in the pan for about two to three minutes on each side. The outside will be a little crisp and the patties will have the look and consistency of crab-cakes.

The sauce is optional but makes a good compliment. Immediately after the fish patties are finished, pour the cup of milk and cup of sour cream into the hot pan and add finely chopped dill. Stir with a spatula for about a minute and serve with the serve with the fish.

Enjoy with a side dish of potato dumplings or potato salad and a fine adult beverage.

sugar and spice

It seems that the European Union sometimes goes after the low-hanging fruit and tries to regulate to death the weak and the vulnerable—for example the recent assault against traditional Danish baked goods and strictures on how much cinnamon is safe for consumption, especially when strewn atop the vehicle of the sweet roll.

Despite customs and recipes that have gone on for centuries, authorities are focusing their attention on the naturally-occurring toxin called coumarin, present in trace amounts in cinnamon but also responsible for the smell of freshly-mowed grass and botanists believe it is a deterrent against grazers. Some concessions are allowed for holiday treats and other products like May wine that is distilled with woodruff (Waldmeister, another poison-laden culprit that's usually replaced with artificial colours and flavours) and there's some evidence from practioners of homeopathy for coumarin's benefits, but EU officials are concerned that the spice could contribute to liver dysfunction, if bakers were left to the own devices.

psalm qualms

The Swiss Society for the Public Good is sponsoring a contest with an honourarium to replace the old national anthem with a new work more reflective of the modern, independent confederation and Swiss character. Traditionalists are understandably upset since the reform is perceived as change for change's sake and the old anthem (German: Hymne) is a beautifully composed piece but more fitting for a psalm, as it was originally meant to be, and not something stirring or uniting like Rule Britannia or La Marseillaise, which no one would think of changing one jot or tittle even though lyrics nowadays are a little over the top.

Far from some tuneless drone or directionless march that other countries employ, the psalm was written in the mid 19th century and adopted to replace words set to the tune of God Save the Queen, popular all across Europe and erstwhile at the time. Proponents of change, on the other hand, vehemently claim that no one really knows the words to the song and described as a cross between a sermon and a weather forecast, only codified as an anthem officially in 1981, no one has a real cultural investment in the piece. The contest's sponsors will not pick a winner unilaterally, however, but bring the matter to a national referendum in the summer.

terra incognito

Gizmodo (via the Presurfer) features a gallery of historic maps of the Americas made before the idea (knowledge of geography being what it is, rightly or wrongly) of the shapes of the continents and coast had fully cemented in the heads of European explorers.
It took centuries, for example, to disabuse cartographers from the conception that California was not some disembodied island already, and some are effacingly honest, like the chart called, “Map of New-England, Being the First That Ever Was Here Cut, and Done by the Best Pattern That Could Be Had, Which Being in Some Places Defective, It Made the Other Less Exact: Yet Doth It Sufficiently Shew the Scituation of the Country, and Conveniently” and shewing a part of Pennsylvania and a part of Long Iſland.

the rowdy girls

After granting clemency to one certain former oligarch imprisoned in a Siberian gulag, an amnesty law led to the pardoning of thousands of inmates in Russia, including a girl-band and environmental activists. Their crimes?

To be specific, according to German news sources, Rowdytum—rowdiness, and was on the law books until just recently. I suppose that the message is still status-non-gratis, since I guess those freed prisoners would not challenge the authorities after serving their commuted sentences and going through that experience, and I am not sure if the term хулиганство has other connotations, but the German mixed-designation does sound much better than its literal alternatives, like disturbing the peace, yobbishness or chavtastic. Though far from ideal, I'd suggest judicious use of criticism as many governments fancy their worst example peerless and tolerable at the same time without savouring the irony. I admit, however, I had never heard the word used until this latest iteration of jubilee. I knew the usage, though, as the German version of Die Simpsons refers to the characters Nelson Muntz, Jimbo Jones, Kearney Zzyzwick and Dolph Starbeam collectively as die Rowdys.