The Pork Shank Redemption

As a self-confessed foodie and let’s face it, gourmet snob, life on the cheap is not always kind to me. Don’t get me wrong, I can work a bowl of rice with the best of them but when you find yourself standing in the aisles of your local discount supermarket and having the whole ‘meat tonight vs a week of rice and maybe, maybe some vegetables’ debate, well, a little bit of that gourmet foodie dies inside. Now I’m a girl who could happily live in the Serrano Ham hanging section in Brindisa. I’ve made it my business to discover the best burger in London (I still hold steady on the Sam’s Brasserie horseradish laden patty followed by The Electric’s cheeseburger and Battersea's Butcher & Grill's fries-on-the-side-less offering.) I’ve eaten nothing but truffle stuffed brie for two days, passing even on the crackers as to not dilute the incredible flavour of mouldy milk and if w're honest about it, fungus. But that’s how I roll. I like food. And I like people who like food.
I’m also the kind of girl who will walk instead of take a bus to better afford good food in London. I will walk an extra mile in five inch heels, because I know that if I walk that mile and then another and then another, I will eventually have saved enough money to go to Borough Market and splurge on Morels. Or raclette. Or a £10 pack of chorizo. There was a Lidl near enough where I lived in London and I would walk the long way around the block to get to where I was going in order to not pass it. That is how much of a fucking food snob I am. There is nothing redeeming about an 18 pack of Wagon Wheels for 39p. Nothing.

But in Berlin... Well... Let’s just say things are different here. There is a LIDL (the mother superior of white trash grocery establishments) next door to my house. And that is where I shop. Now, there are other options. There is a Netto down the street and an Aldi a few blocks away. But nothing, nothing can beat lidl for sheer value and shame. They sell yogurt in 5litre buckets. BUCKETS. With handles. It’s fucking horrible. Anyway, there’s no sense in trying to get around it. I’m living on the cheap and living on the cheap in Germany entails shopping trips to Lidl. What’s a girl to do? If ever I am in the shop and a food related panic attack threatens to floor me, I run quickly to the meat fridges. There, I can pass hours. There’s more speck and leberkaese and sausages than I can shake a ham hock at. When all else is lost, the meat fridges make me very, very happy. The other day I spent so long standing at them that the security guard started circling me like a shark. He’d make an appearance every 2 minutes or so, always poking his head out from a different aisle, to check if I was still standing there, staring at the meat. I imagine he thought I was just waiting to make a break for it, 12 pounds of eisbein stuffed under my shirt. after all, what sort of person hangs out in the meat aisle?

Anyway, it’s a good thing I love German food. I’m not supposed to eat vinegar, but honestly I’ll give up wheat AND sugar AND milk AND wine before vinegar. Vinegar is oddly essential. It’s the Kevin Bacon of food stuffs. It’s in everything, you just don’t realise it. And if I hadn’t already made peace with the fact that I would not live a vinegarless life, then Berlin would have made me do it. Becuase, holy hell. Everything is pickled. I’m okay with that. I love pickled things. Onions, Gherkins, Cabbage, Fish. You pickle it I’ll eat it. And tonight, I ate a fully pickled meal. It being Sunday, I decided to treat myself to a knife and fork meal. Knife and fork meals are sadly rare when living on the cheap, particularly alone. There is nothing frugal about the use of a steak knife on a 200gram rump. It’s more egg fried rice and risotto and miso soup. But tonight, I made eisbein served with sauerkraut and gherkins. Holy Hell. The deliciousness of ham hocks is sometimes too much for me to bear. And a surprisingly affordable meal too, because unlike in England, ham hocks are readily available here. God knows where they all disappear to in the UK, because we’ve previously had a hard time getting hold of them for the German GPs. Anyway, they’re everywhere here. And I mean everywhere. The other night I went into a late night convenience store, the kind that you can buy single beers or packs of cigarettes or a litre of milk from at 3 in the morning and at the back of the shop, next to the chocolate milk and energy drinks, a pile of vacuum packed eisbein. And really, Lidl or no Lidl, that might be enough for the foodie in me. To live in a city where you can buy Eisbein at 3 in the morning.