A slightly ambiguous photo of a park sign… "Please BBQ dogs" (Flickr: bleicher)

If I said to you barbeque, you’d say to me: America! After all, it is the land of BBQ sauce, rib and steak cook-outs and, oddly enough, a variety of grilled “dogs” – which, I have to confess, I always had the Koreans down for, but whaddya know?

Anyway, I’m not the only one who’s a little limited in his range of associative thinking when it comes to barbequed food: after all, how many of you would instantly think of Germany when you smell charcoal and singed sausages?

If there’s one thing almost everyone new to Germany soon learns, it’s that the Germans take their food very seriously. Anyone who then spends time in anything more than one part of Germany also learns that they take their regional food even more seriously.

Serious means: regions, cities and small villages with their own cookery books. Serious means: dishes that are not only unknown in other parts of the country, but frequently impossible to pronounce there, too. Serious means: don’t use the wrong word for bread-rolls in a bakery if you value non-spat-on wheat and rye products.