Hackfleisch

To my dear German friends:
 
Please, at this special time of year, Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All Men, do your very best to support Her Majesty The Queen of the United Kingdom, her Government and loyal folk to Brexit the EU while still having their cake and eating it. If they remain in the EU, there is a very real danger that they may be forced to export some of their foods to us and they are panicking about a lack of food on the supermarket shelves.
 
At the moment they are hellbent on wanting to import US chlorinated chicken and hormone- reared beef, even their ex-Brexit Minister recently doing a £11,464 trip to Washington and Oklahoma (largest beef producers) at the expense of US food lobbyists and quite unbelievably, almost half paid by the government of the Chickasaw Native American Nation based in Oklahoma!
 
The photo shows what the British call mincemeat which I will translate for you :
 
The verb “mince” means to chop/cut into small pieces. Germans would say “zerhacken” or “ zerkleinen” and the expression “to mince meat” is “Hackfleisch machen”.
The noun “Mince” simply means “Hackfleish”, “Gehackte”, “Hack” and in northern Germany “Hackpeter”. The stuff you make into Hamburgers, Fleischpflanzerl, Buletten or Frikadellen.
 
The noun “Meat” is probably well known – simply "Fleisch" from whatever animal you like.
 
The ingredients shown In the photo include: raisins, currants, sultanas, cranberries, dried soft figs & apricots, almonds, crushed cloves and cinnamon, ginger, lemon & orange zest and juice, brown raw sugar and a good amount of brandy, plus a few fresh diced Granny Smith's - UK doesn't allow exports of Bramleys to Germany. This mix is almost all that you will see in what the UK calls "Mincemeat".

What I haven’t included and the omission will mean I never get past the UK Border Controls, is the magical addition of animal fat, not just any fat but beef or sheep fat from the heart and kidney area, known in the UK as “Suet” and a stable part of the UK Cuisine. What we in Germany only get to see in those tennis ball size, plastic mesh enclosed things we hang out on our terraces and window sills for the wild birds, notably tits, in winter. In the UK, they have supermarket shelves lined with the stuff, usually in powder form but I suspect most British butchers have it fresh too.
 
As I still wish to have some German friends after Christmas, Suet was not included in the mixture.
 
My version of mincemeat was finished at 00:02 this morning and for the remaining 23 hours and 58 minutes of the day I did little nothing of any worth and Angie even walked the dog twice, once while on horseback during a spell when it didn’t rain. She also went to a local friend (one of her weekly sauna groups) who has a smallholding with his wife with loads of greenhouses selling fruit, veg, fresh cut flowers, plants and keeps organic chickens, turkeys, geese and sheep which he slaughters and butchers himself. At Thursday's sauna sweating, one of the group wanted a turkey leg for her Christmas joint and Angie agreed to take a one-legged turkey for our feast as he would have had a problem selling it to a customer unaware of sauna selling methods.



Today just before she set off to collect it, I mentioned I would love a proper Leg of Lamb roast one day in the future and gave her a photo of the joint so as to ask him if he ever had this – lamb is not a meat you will find on display in 99% of German butchers, only available in advanced orders and usually only at Easter and Christmas. And every country has different ways of butchering and what they use the cuts for. I had no idea if the cut was known in Germany.

 
When Angie got home with the 1-legged fresh turkey, she also had a large frozen Leg of Lamb! What joy and from my one and only attempt at getting her to eat it about 15 years ago when I found by chance in the Walmart frozen cabinet a leg of New Zealand lamb, I can rest assured I will have it all to myself and the leftovers in dozens of form, including REAL Shepherd’s Pie. Walmart went bust in Germany shortly afterwards.
 
Talking of supermarkets, Angie popped into our local national supermarket at around 17:00 to pick up some last minute bits. Most shops closed at midday for the weekend, only the national stores open until 18:00 or supermarkets 20:00. I suspect most food shops will open on Monday for a few hours but at 14:00 that will be it until Thursday. No shops open on Christmas Eve afternoon, nor on Christmas or Boxing Day. Apart from the shop workers, hardly anyone will go to work on Monday. It’s an unofficial, official half-day public holiday as is New Year’s Eve.
 
I have been watching British TV trying to predict the size of the annual UK panic Christmas gift and food purchasing that will be going on today, Sunday and Monday and will start again on Boxing Day. Angie said there were three people in the supermarket and nobody waiting at the checkout.


"Andere Länder, andere Sitten" "different countries, different customs" as all German children are taught, notably about the English, as this trip to London shows.