N�rnberg, Mittelfranken, 2005-10-15 - 3:12 a.m.

Last weekend Peo called me in the early evening & asked me whether I would come with them & another couple to go dining somewhere 'Karpfen' (carp). Here in Mittelfranken (middle Frankonia) on the country there are a lot of ponds were carps are raised & autumn is harvest time for the 'Karpfen'.

The other couple we wanted to pick lived in a small town 20 km away from Nuremberg - they should lead us then to the special 'Karpfen' Inn.

So at about 7 p.m Peter came with his Rolls (Mr. Roller rolls his Royce) - he's such an braggard - to pick me up:

Then we drove to the other end of Nurenberg to get the 'Ladies' (Peo & Oy) in:

Our tour to diners club was ready to start:

The way to Heilsborn would have been about 20 km straight, but then there was a 'Umleitung' (detour), that leaded us a long way through small villages & the signs that should lead us through the diversion, were in the beginning dawn sometimes hard to recognize & were even missing on important crossings of the main street. - We became very unsure, whether we are still on the right way, driving on small roads leading everywhere & nowhere through woods & fields & our unsureness got positive confirmed, when after an half hour we were back at the point where we had started the detour route - oohm that was enerving - well on second try we found the right way & about an hour later than appointed, we met that couple there.

OK - while in Heilsbronn we also had troubles finding them, & had to call them twice by cellphone, because the restrict where they lived, seemed to be a total labyrinth.

We followed them while they lead us the way with their car to that restaurant, which I thought, would be somewhere in Heilsbronn. But the left the town to a small countryroad, leading to a small village near Heilsbronn. We reached a small village, called Aich, where this special carp restaurant was. I was a bit surprised, where we had landed, because I had lived more than 20 years ago just in this tiny village with about 20 or 30 houses.

The Gasthof (Inn) had totally changed its's outfit from the outside, but inside not much had changed.

Of course we all ordered the speciality of the house: 'baked carp fish'

The typical German doesn't like to eat, what he doesn't know (like probably also the typical citizen of any country) "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, das frisst er nicht" is an old German proverb, that means: "What the peasant doesn't know, he won't eat"

Well - this one meal was called "Zicklein-Braten" - & to translate it: 'Zicklein' is a little goat, 'Braten' = roast.

My dining fellow got curious about the taste of the goat roast - So Herbert tried a piece & said, that he liked the taste & even Peter ate one piece - then Peo, my thai friend tried another piece & grimaced disgusted. She said: "It stinks", how could I eat such meat?.. -
I told her that Herbert had also liked the taste, but by then he had lost his opinion against her accusing, because Peo is very attractive - what a spineless guy! -

Anyway I have my own taste & am never influenced by the opinion of others in taste, be it wine, be it art or food - I only trust my own senses!

But I must say - the kind they made that roast was not too delicious - in fact it was barbaric. They drowned the slices of roast in a brown sauce, served it with 2 big dumplings (big round balls made of potato mash with roasted bread crumbles inside)

So they had prepared the Zicken Braten exaxtly like they would have made a Pork roast - & I believe there could have been a million ways to make a much better kind of roast of goat lambs.

But on the country in Frankonia the cooking is very traditional, rustical & primitive - but most people here like it, like all primitive people in all the whole world like their primitive customs - just because they got since childhood used to it & of course never change a running system - I believe a lot of the tastes & distastes of most people are learnt by customs or by education & imitated from the surrounding custom rules..

& that means: they don't have any taste at all!

On our way back I thought about it:
In my youth - I was 19 then - I had lived in Aich in a comunity of 8 people, 4 women, 4 men. We had no telephone, no radio & no television - we had a big garden, an own well, some chicken, some cats, a dog & also some goats (not to forget the cat flees or something like that, who liked to bite you in the night in the legs).

We had only 2 women who worked in an institute as nurses for handicapped, 2 of us were students, but we shared our money & everything together, I worked in the house & in the garden there, but did also try to find a job out there. which seemed to be impossible in this little village so far from towns with industry & offices etc. - I even tried to get the same job as nurse for handicapped - they let me work there for 3 days for trial, but then refused to take me, because I didn't had christian confession (I had left church when I was 17) - but they knew, that I wasn't in church before I started these 3 days trial work..

The time in Aich was one of my most harmonic & beautiful times I had ever had & I had tears in my heart & eyes when I left, because I couldn't get a job out there. It was like being expelled from paradize..

But what a coincidence, that more than 20 years later I ate the first time in my life goat meat, in the same far away village, where I had lived long before together with goats. - Probably the goat I ate, was a descendant of those goats we had..

Epilogue

hmm? - but did a have a bad conscience about eating a young child of a goat - hmm - not really - but Peter's remarks must have followed me in my dream later on - I dreamt, that I was lying on a sweet playground, a green meadow, there were some little cute white kittens playing around me & then I also saw a marten coming playfully closer - he lied then in front of me & one of the white little kittens was playing just in front of him - I knew, that martens are killers for little animals & feared, that he would bite & kill the little kitty in front of him - but I thought I shouldn't intervene - this would be just the natural way how animals react to each other - I was aware, that it could be dangerious for the little cat, but I didn't stop the marten - still watching & still hoping that nothing bad would happen I watched the kitten lying down directly on the breast of the lying marten - it seemed, that they loved each other, lying there so peacefully together, the kitty nose to nose together with that marten.

But out of that harmony the marten opened his mouth & bit the kitten directly in the face, biting her nose off - the kitten was dead at once & I felt somehow guilty & thought also about the other little cats running around in that meadow - would he get them all? -I wasn't sure whether my decision of not intervening was the right decision. Luckily I awoke then, relieved that I wasn't in real life responsible for that kitty killing - but then remembered that I had eat a little goat the night before & feared that there was maybe a co-relation.. .. well, but I still eat meat with all it's consequences of killing cute little animals in the background, where we never see what really happens there - so let's close our eyes & believe that there is a slight difference from our meat eating to canibalism..