:How Germans Actually Live (Americans Are Shocked)

:How Germans Actually Live (Americans Are Shocked) You opened a window in January and your whole family looked at you like you had lost your mind. You tried to buy milk on a Sunday in Germany and every door was locked. The cashier pushed your groceries past you before you found a bag. It is not your fault. Nobody ever explains how Germans actually live. My grandmother Käthe filled the same wooden cellar shelf every fall for more than fifty years. In 1962 I counted 140 jars on it: plums, beans, apples, cherries, every one sealed with a rubber ring and two metal clips. Next to them stood the stone Gärtopf with its two weighting stones and the hundred heads of cabbage she salted by hand. That cellar ran the house. And when I walk down into my cousin's cellar in Germany today, it is still there. How I know this: I grew up in it. I came to America at 25 and I have gone back to Germany for my family ever since, so I see both kitchens with two pairs of eyes. I am Petra Weber. I was born in a village near Ulm, and I have lived and cooked in America for almost fifty years. In this one: - Why Germans throw every window WIDE OPEN twice a day, even in January (Lüften) - The SILENT Sunday, and the one shop that is allowed to open - Why the cashier is so fast, and why nobody bags your groceries - The bottle deposit machine, and why bottles get set NEXT to the trash can - Five bins, three colors of glass - Why Germans still love CASH - Sparkling water, and the crate of bottles in every home - The drying rack in the living room - Why German apartments come WITHOUT A KITCHEN - Coffee and cake at three - The allotment garden and the canning jars - The room every German apartment has that yours does not The method in one line: air the house in short wide bursts, shop small and often, and let one full Saturday carry the whole week. A safety word: my grandmother put green beans up in a boiling water bath. We do not do that anymore. Beans and other low-acid vegetables belong in a pressure canner, as the USDA advises. Fruit and jam with enough acid are fine in the water bath. Which one would you try first, the open window in January or the drying rack? And tell me where you are watching from. I read every one.