What is chipotle quesadilla?

‘Food desert’ is geographic term referring to a community where most members do not own a car and there is no grocery store within a mile. This makes attaining good quality and affordable food difficult. Even though I am in no way actually in a food desert, it still feels applicable. A little run down of the very traditional German diet that I have been thrust into. For breakfast I eat cereal, but most Germans eat bread rolls with jam and butter. For lunch it’s something warm like snitzel or Gutsherrentopf (which sounds exotic but really isn’t). Then for dinner it’s cold slices of bread with ham, cheese, and butter. I didn’t really understand until today that this meal plan doesn’t change.

My whole life I’ve been surrounded by foods from around the world. I’m lucky to live a diverse area due to the fact that many diplomats and scientists from around the world choose to live near the capital. Even just going over to my friends houses has exposed me to different cultures and cuisines. Like last year when my friend introduced a delicious Iranian dish called Zereshk polo. I never realized how lucky I was to have such diverse food available at a whim. In my area, a conversation like this is so regular I had no idea it wasn’t the same everywhere.

“Hey what are you feeling for dinner?”

“I’ve actually been craving Indian food lately.”

“You’re always craving Indian. What about Thai we haven’t had that for a while?”

“Sounds good”

Over the past four weeks I’ve slowly come to the realization that the only kind of food available here is German. This shouldn’t come as such a shock but during my month in Hamburg my diet didn’t change in any drastic way. If I wanted Spanish food for lunch then I could grab a quesadilla not far away. But now, there is one restaurant in Jubar that doesn’t offer anything more exotic than currywurst, and the closest grocery store a 10 minute drive away doesn’t exactly sell naan. Today I asked five of my classmates if they even knew what a quesadilla was, and none of them did. I found this out because I’ve been complaining about wanting a Chipotle quesadilla since I arrived. Today one of my friends finally asked me, “Bea, we all want to know, what is Chipotle quesadilla?”

I was so flabbergasted. I knew that there’s only two Chipotles in Germany so I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t know the chain. It was the fact they had never heard of a quesadilla. Shook to my core by this information I started listing all of the staples of my diet in America. For almost all, they had never heard of it, and they’ve never eaten any of the foods on this list:

Tikka Masala
Corn bread
Dumplings
Korean beef
Brisket
Mexican street tacos
Frittata
Grits
Paneer chicken
Naan
Ramen
Pulled pork

It’s really no surprise that my YouTube has progressively become more and more cooking videos. Yesterday I found myself watching video called “Tonkotsu Ramen from scratch” while I brushed my teeth. Today I know it’s because I desperately miss food that isn’t some variation of bread, potatoes, and meat. I’m desperately trying to add some spice to my life. I’ve been pouring pepper and curry spice onto my bread every night, much to the horror of the Germans around me.

This has opened my eyes to how truly homogeneous my area of Germany is. Every person I’ve talked to can trace their family line back to WW1 and beyond. I’ve met people who have never traveled farther than Liepzig for the class trip two years ago. It kind of baffles me that they have no idea what the other options are, they’ve never experienced anything different. But for me, I’m almost spinning from the knowledge that there will be no heterogeneity in my food unless I cook something myself. I know now that when I return to the US I will never take the variety of food options for granted ever again. But for now, I have a long list of foods that I’m going to have my big girl pants on and cook myself if I want to enjoy. I’m also thinking of starting a separate section on the blog about the foods I cook; how it goes and what the reaction is from the Germans. For example, yesterday I made an easy dessert called Brazilian Brigadaro. My friends all loved it and asked for the recipe but my host parents weren’t fans. So if my three subscribers would like that let me know 🙂

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