Vacation pt. 1: the Germans have insanely good food

So I married a guy from western Norway after dating him for…like…ten years. This made it pretty important that I meet his family at some point. Hence, Europe trip. And I am immensely grateful that we could bring our girlfriend, because that let me form a coalition majority with another non-European for taking votes on travel activities and whether something was weird.

We did 4 nights in Germany, 1 night in Denmark, 8 nights in Norway, then reversed course, returning through Denmark and Germany. Norway was the point of our trip, but I’m gonna talk about Germany. Sorry. I liked it better there. They won me over with the food.

Oh my god food in Germany is sooooo good. And we stayed in an actual castle. But the food!

First of all, I was shocked by how cheap things were. I made my partners detour into two separate grocery stores so I could browse. I’m talking food prices 1/2 to 1/3 of what they’d be in America, with the exception of meat, which was comparable. But the produce! High-quality, fresh fruits and vegetables, with great variety. I discovered I love gooseberries by giving them the same treatment as every other mysterious fruit or vegetable I encountered on the trip, i.e., stuffing my face first and googling what I just consumed later.

So, meals at the castle hotel in the Rhine Valley!

Pickled tuna with wasabi sauce at the castle. I could eat this stuff daily.

Chocolate and passionfruit at the castle.

My favorite thing at the castle: CARROT SOUP. I have no words for how much I loved this.

Cherry tomato tart and goat cheese crème brulée at the castle.

I think this was pork. I mostly remember the fish-tail-cut mushrooms on the right. Those were GOOD.

Carpaccio at the castle. The dinner menu was prix fixe, and the night this was served, a very loud American family with very hungry, unruly children walked in and asked for vegan food. I think they ended up with buttered noodles.

And that’s just from the first restaurant. There were TWO castle restaurants, plus the best breakfast buffet I’ve ever experienced.

German charcuterie– No cheese, but lots of pickled things. Can you spot my partners trying to escape the frame?

I-can’t-remember-what-meat-this-was at the castle. The sauce was mushroom though. Very good.

And lastly, something that looks like what I expected of German food: sausage and sauerkraut at the castle.

This wasn’t expensive either. I would say it cost maybe 1/3 of what I’d expect to pay where I live. So we could’ve afforded to eat like this every night of our trip! Incredible. Now I’ve made myself hungry, so I am going to sadly cook a chicken breast. I’ll follow up with posts pretending that I feel half as much enthusiasm for history or sightseeing later.