Bodabira-Club, Attahausa - Part 2

After the morning walk with the dogs in Ottobeuren, had a quick look at the Red Cross flea market being held there  - another "must" for Angie. I gave up after 5 minutes and returned home as the Bodabira Club were due to be in action again.

Today was sorting and sacking as shown on the photo. Everyone mucking in Was able to learn a bit more about the club.

Bodabira: Well the best person to explain this word is a Yorkshireman and graduate of Reading University, Anthony Rowley. Professor of Linguistics at Bayreuth University, guest professor for German Language at Munich University and leads the team researching Bavarian dialects for the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Blip has a member, PurbeckDavid, who could probably do just as well and also knows Munich university. Bodabira is probably "Unterallgeirisch" for Boden Birne = Earth Pear = Potato. Dialects in Germany and probably even more in Bavaria get very complicated. I can't begin to explain save to say "Bavarian" is not spoken here where we live in Bavaria - here they speak Swabian! Allemanisch rather than Germanisch - you keeping up with me? The Bavarian language area also encompasses all of Austria except for the part known as Vorarlberg on Lake Constance......now you are really confused...

Much of Germany uses the word Erdapfel for potato, Earth Apple is one of the ingredients of the dish (seldom seen here) of Himmel und Erde (Himmel und Ääd in northern/western Germany) or Heaven & Earth, a dish of mashed potato and apple puree.

Club: A Bavarian word originating from drunken evenings in the local pub where people come up with ideas to form a group to carry out silly ideas. Its real genesis can be traced back to the brewery that made the beer that was drunk on the evening. I remember this phenomenon from the Cricketer's Arms in Wisborough Green, West Sussex and the launching of the BLMRA which later had several Concorde pilots, Sir Sterling Moss, Oliver Reed and Derek Bell as members. My son was later to become a member and driver.


Attahausa: is the Swabian for our village - Attenhausen as it is spelt in Google Maps.

Some 15 years ago the regulars at the village pub came up with the idea of having a "potato club". Using a strip of land to plant, tend and harvest potatoes for their own use it got bigger when they realised they could sell the potatoes and thereby finance the odd party. It's still very small and remains a fun group using old machines and lots of manual work. As can be seen on yesterdays Blip the field is about 10m wide and 50m long and provided two smallish trailers.

Like yesterday, the group were extraordinarily friendly and inviting. Great to see the young and little less young mucking in to get the work done. In fact, the less young were sort of thinking of giving up the club but the young ones insisted it was kept going.

I think it is a great (now) tradition and so I bought a 25kg sack (9.50 Euros) to support them and look forward to eating some tasty dishes. I have often tried to get local potatoes as supermarket potatoes never seem to taste of potato. This area is not suitable for commercial potato growing, need to go to the area north of here above the Danube.

Anyway, a great experience and my thanks to the Club for their friendly reception. Some more pics on Flickr

Back home spent the afternoon strimming again. Still no kidney stones although I didn't feel them all day. Evening cooked a vegetable dish trying to use up some of the garden produce - aubergine, tomatoes, courgettes, peppers and of course potatoes - the heap of onions, garlic, strong local cheese and cream seemed to hide the taste of the potatoes. Will have to try a simple mash soon.