Frankfurting

I know your humble narrator (JK) had promised a SEAFOOD SEATACULAR, but that must wait for the futuretimes. Indeed, I must shift gears both from the Culinary Endeavours reportage as well as my Gastronomique Tourism of Asia into the land of the low dutch.

On my flight out here (I am in Singapore with intermittent voyages abroad, e.g. Taiwin) I laid over in Frankfurt. With my hour and a half stop I had become an unwitting pilgrim to the land of the Frankfurter - hot dogs to the lay person. Well, not quite, as a Frankfurter is a type of sausage much like a Bratwurst or fat fingers. But to have a frankfurter in frankfurt would be the same as having peking duck in Beijing (crushed - May 2008) or Salisbury steak in Salisbury (not planning on it). You go to Jerusalem to see where Jesus was crucified, to Mt. Rushmore to see where the presidents died and were petrified (dudes were much bigger back in the day), and you go to Frankfurt to see where the sausage gets made.

All joking aside about frankfurters, the attraction here is not the sausage itself - airport food is clearly not the real deal. The attraction, besides the stylishly poised general-issue alumnus hat, is the beer.

Beer in Germany is not the best simply because that's where beer originated (or somewhere around there). German beer is the best because it is subject to stringent quality laws, known as the Reinheitsgebot. After a perusal of the wikipedia page, I realize that the quality laws are differently monikered nowadays, but the principle is the same. The standard ingredients and processes are better.

Pictured above is a delighful Paulaner hefeweizen, a crisp and sweeter beer brewed from wheat. This particular one was unfiltered, leaving it opaque and giving it a pale but full yellow glow. The most popular brand in America is Blue Moon, although Hoegaarden also has an American following. Given its flavor, wheat beers are often served with a slice of lemon or orange as the citric acid really opens up the depths and polychromatic flavor of the beer. But, because the beer is served often with fruit a la a cocktail, jerks think it's fruity and for sissies. Whateva, sucks for them - all the more wheat beer for this wine-ghost.

This half-liter preceded a 1/3 liter glass of Paulaner Pils, also delightful. 'Twas a lager a bit steelier in composition and transparent-er in appearance than the wheat beer. I savored the glass, knowing that these were just the tip of the German beer iceberg (incidentally made entirely of frozen beer) and that I was about to plunge into the less flavorful land of light lagers that is Asia.

I was the last person to re-board the plane.