I chuckle when I see the examples throughout Deutsche society.

The American influence.

Can’t call it white bread.  Can’t call it plain bread.  So why not call it American bread.  I suppose the origin comes from the fact that backereis (bakeries) are as ubiquitous to Bayern towns as church steeples are to Vermont villages.  Every small town has at least one and usually more than one.  And nearly all grocery stores have an in-store bakery and a bakery at the front of the store run under a different name.  With such great crusty bread baked daily, I guess our preservative based store shelf bread is unique to our culture.

As for the peanut butter, same thing.  This example doesn’t have American in the name–just the American flag colors and stars flying in the background–but many do carry American in the name.  They have lots of butters in the grocery stores here but very little peanut.

Funny story.  At the beginning of October I ran the 3 Country Marathon.   As part of my pre-marathon routine I stopped at the Rewe to pick up some peanut butter and bananas.  I searched high and low but could not find any peanut butter.  Now normally I wouldn’t do this because I don’t like assuming they understand English but as this was for marathon preparation, I tracked down a store employee…..after having translated peanut butter to Deutsche so I could grunt my caveman German to her with as few words as possible.

She took me to an aisle where there was a tiny gap in product on one shelf that was maybe four inches wide.  It was wide enough for two jars of peanut butter.

Can you imagine this in the states?  No natural and regular.  No creamy and chunky.  No brand competition.  Just one peanut butter the way they give it to you, when they have it, circa Soviet Union 1980.

But it’s not the states!  So I drove to another store and found my ‘American’ peanut butter.  Love Deutschland.