Would you like pommes frittes with that?

We swore when we moved to Germany that we would not eat American fast food. It’s not good tasting and it’s not good for us. But we have found that while on the military bases, there isn’t much available other than Popeye’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut or Subway. So we have eaten fast food several times between meetings out of necessity. But off post, we have tried to avoid it when possible. They actually have a KFC and a BK down the street from the hotel. It’s funny to see ads for kid meals with toys featuring Spongebob Schwammkopf (“spongebob spongehead” in German).

But alert, alert: fast food is a relative term. We discovered that when we broke down and went to BK for lunch one day. In the States we order at the counter, step aside to wait for our food and let another person order. Not here. You order, wait for them to process every part of your order, you pay (a lot), and then you leave. It takes a while. The other difference is that when you order by number (menu #3 or whatever) you are usually not ordering a value meal. It is often just the sandwich and you have to add the fries and drink separately. And when you order, you say “cheeseburger” and "Coke" and "ketchup" in English, but the fries are called pommes frites, which is French for “fried potatoes”. French fries. If you say it in French I guess you don’t have to say the word French. The German (and Russian, incidentally) word for potatoes is kartoffel. So here is a good example of how having studied French and Russian helps me learn German (I'm glad it's good for something). Anyway, so you get your pommes frites, and sometimes it advertises that the price includes free mayonnaise (retch, vomit) or ketchup. That is a good deal. But you just get one packet. If you want more it costs 30 euro cents per packet. That is, roughly, 50 cents American. You didn’t know, did you, that when they throw a handful of ketchup packets in your bag at the drive-thru, you are sitting on gold, my friend.

Ah, but the Germans love their pommes frittes. And, who am I kidding, so does our family. We have had them with nearly every meal, even in fancy restaurants. They usually dust them with paprika, which is surprisingly pleasing. And you know, it’s a good thing fries are veggies (and ketchup too, according to the senior Pres. Bush), because you’re not going to see a whole lot of others at restaurants. I mean, you can get a nice green salad, usually served topped with sauerkraut, shredded marinated carrots, and maybe a tomato or cucumber slice. I really like their salads. But at dinner it’s usually a breaded meat, bread, spaetzle (noodle) and/or potato. That’s it. We’re so desperate for green that we routinely eat the garnish (“Dibs on the parsley! Hey, hands off my lettuce leaf!”) God bless the Adkins dieters. Germany is miles from South Beach, and even farther from the Zone. Throw in the usual dinnertime beer (cheaper than the soda or mineral water) and you’ve got yourself a carb-lover’s paradise. I worry about folks with "the sugar". Diabetics would have a hard time eating out here.

Oh, and white meats are hard to find too. You can sometimes find a turkey breast on the menu (called “puten”—the source of many a dinnertime joke) but as the old lady in the Wendy’s commercial could have yelled, “Where is the chicken?” (we’ve already found the beef aplenty). Chicken is cheap. Why it’s not more popular here is beyond me. It’s enough to drive a girl screaming to KFC for a bucket of chicken with pommes frittes. Hmmm, do you think they serve that garnished with parsley?