No Tomatoes

Scattered mushrooms whorled and yellow tumble over benches in the market: it is my first photograph in Munich. Mike and I are yet to decide on a whereabouts for supper, but something that includes something so seasonal, so wild, seems like a good starting point. Distracting us momentarily is a passing couple: they capture us in lederhosen (he) and red trousers (I). Photograph number two.

Like a hand stoking a gauntlet we pass the remaining stalls. After British farmer’s/fisherman’s/physicist’s markets touting steak and shampoo, an authentic market seems fictitious: one part expects to see tins of pineapple stolen from Spar shelves with ten pence added for the pleasure, though I may be confusing village fetes.

Grey cobblestones recline to the sway and shush of rusting leaves, the market is behind us, and now, too, is the afternoon. Striding from Mike’s gnomic apartment, at last grass is squeezed beneath my feet. I have not touched it for months. Zentrum, a thick glass door leads to a barn-like space, with ogrous tables flanked by stubborn benches under beams and balustrades the colour of Reisling. We note our neighbours drinking similar; Julia notes this is cause for a beating. The solid if sympathetic interior harks to a beer hall, beer should be drunk.

She and I order venison ragout and those ghoulish twists of wild mushroom, salads on the side, pork added by the others. Several plates arrive each, the venison rich and tufty. The sauce contains wine –the only acceptable place for it –and it is salty and bloody. For a tongue used to tossing ballerinic squeals of fish, I have to pace myself and knit in the orbiting sides. Inch thick wet pork guarded by growling crackling dominates Mike’s plate, and towering bulbs of beer stand assured like chess-pieces about the table. Hoppy, white and foggy with a diffused yellow glow, German beer tastes smooth and herbaceous. It is also drunk by all, making me question why we Brits should prop up in England a culture based about lager when such fine ales are available. I shall remedy my bias at Christmas, when, too I hope to return to Germany.

For now, however, a vanishing Munich is sired to the whoosh of ICE and limp salute of towering hops. The countryside expands, and suburbs succumb to farmhouses. The drawbridge to this most ideal of cities is raised; now begins the mission to lower it permanently.