Lisa Ann wrote:

> > Italian food...... in Germany? You're pulling our collective leg
> > aren't you?
>
> Sadly, I believe her.

It's him, not here, and it's true :-(

> My brother went to France 10 years ago on business.
> I was insanely jealous (can someone tell me why I'm the one who majored in
> foreign languages, but will apparently be the last in my family to get to
> Europe?), and quizzed him when he got back. "The food there sucks," he
> informed me. He went on to explain that his boss, their French contact and
> he had "gone out for a large pizza and 3 Pepsis, and it cost over 50 bucks!
> And the pizza sucked!" He explained that he had assumed they'd have *great*
> pizza in France, because it's so close to Italy. "Hell, we're clear across
> the ocean and we got us some great pizza here!"

He is a victim of a false assumption. He assumed that Italian pizza is good. I
had pizza in Italy once and it was the worst pizza I have ever had. The Pepsis
would have set them back a bit too. That stuff is expensive over there. Before
my first trip to Europe people told me that you might as well drink beer or wine
because it is the same pries there. In my mind, that mean that a beer would be
the same price we pay for pop. As it turned out, they pay as much for a soft
drink as we pay for beer, sometimes more.


> Luckily, he ate German food in Germany - he didn't really care for it, he
> said, but any country who makes beer that good doesn't need good food.

I really enjoyed the food in Germany. I only had one bad meal in Germany, but
that one was in a tourist area. The Jaeger Schnitzel I ordered turned out to be
a burger patty with a crappy gravy with some mushrooms in it. Breakfast buffets
there were outstanding.

> He actually *liked* English food when he was in England; said he never wanted
> to see potatoes again after time in Scotland and Ireland (but again, the
> beer was good).

Potatoes are quite common in western Europe. It was rare not to have potatoes
served with a meal, though they tend to do interesting things for them, and they
are careful to use different types of potatoes for different potato dishes. At a
dinner party in Denmark there were two different potato dishes.


> Nearly starved to death in China, but at least was polite
> about it.

A friend of mine who has travelled the world several times and worked overseas
for much of his life adapted quite easily to local food everywhere except
Taiwan. He came back with a powerful dislike of Chinese food.

>
> After the trip to France, I started demanding DNA tests. I just *know* my
> parents brought the wrong baby home - there's no way we're related!
>

Nice place isn't it.