Aileen Jeffries

I do not pine for olden days. This is by far the best time and place to be alive in human history. To defend this stance, I need only mention a handful of inventions: anesthesia, birth control, democracy, the Internet.

Simply put, there was no “Golden Era” of anything. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements. If a particular population had it good during a decade of yore (consider white men in the 1950’s or, oh, ever), it was at the expense of someone else.

That said, not everything about history is terrible. There are exactly three things I’d like to revive and incorporate into my otherwise contented, modern existence.

1. Wallpaper.

2. Desserts made with gelatin. Even in our modern times, gelatin is derived from the collagen inside animals’ skin and bones. There’s something satisfyingly thrifty about making food with scraps. My favorite is panna cotta topped with cherries. Made with cream, yogurt, almond extract, and honey. And domestic animal by-products.

3. Silhouette portraits. Popular before photography, I imagine the process originally involved a flickering candle as the only light source and tracing the shadow on a barn door or traveling circus tent with a lump of charcoal from the campfire.

Digital cameras, electricity and Photoshop make silhouette portraiture easier these days. Squirming, unruly subjects – in my case a toddler – add just enough challenge to keep it interesting.

In my, shall I say, unusual childhood, we had a huge garden that was the source of most of our food. Row upon row of peas, sugar beets, carrots and squash.

Farming on the Canadian Shield is never easy – the soil is poor and shallow and in no month is it guaranteed not to snow. But while I spent hours and hours of my youth weeding and taking out rocks and digging up potatoes, the worry and responsibility of growing enough food to make it through the winter rested on the squarely shoulders of my parents, not mine. Which is how it should be when you’re six.

Now that I finally have the space and time (this is debatable) to grow my own garden, the stakes are considerably lower. I live just a few blocks from a weekly farmers market. I’m married to someone who distrusts food that doesn’t come wrapped tightly in cellophane and considers iceberg lettuce to be a vegetable (it isn’t, of course, it’s crunchy, pale-green water). We’re so far off from being successful survivalists, we don’t even have a root cellar.
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I have read that Munich is experiencing a cultural and culinary awakening; stepping out from the shadow of hipper-than-thou Berlin. Munich has been considered the more conservative German city, possibly due to proximate Italy’s Catholic influence. But now contemporary, experimental restaurants are turning Munich’s stogy reputation on end. There are even several vegetarian places sprouting up.

We were careful to avoid such establishments. The DMTF dinner was at Ratskeller, a cavernous restaurant under the Rathaus (which means city hall – I must admit I find it funny the city hall is called “Rat House” but I assume rat doesn’t mean scaly-tailed rodent in German). I knew my arteries were in for some hardening when I saw the pretzel accompaniment – a condiment comprised of what looked like bacon, butter and lard. Dinner was a heaping portion duck and dumplings. The beer was excellent, but I was surprised by the limited choices. There was light beer and dark beer. I went with the light.

The best part of the evening was the band, a traditional three-piece group. There was yodeling.

On our last night in Munich we selected a similar restaurant, the Hofbräuhaus. I learned from Latifa that Hofbräuhaus just means brewery, but I like to think we went to the Hofbräuhaus in Munich. It was established in 1598, when the Duke of Bavaria was dissatisfied with the locally available beer. Kes learned that one does not eat the casings of weisswurst although no one has been able to provide a reasonable explanation of why not. We’ve decided Kea is our little weisswurst.

In addition to frequenting the Bakery Bar for the bacon they put in their scones, I love them because they can do this with my morning hot chocolate.