I'll just back from a rather excellent long weekend in Weinhiem, Germany. Among other touristy and holiday type things I also drank some beer and ate a lot of excellent food. For that reason I want to do a few food and drink related posts, after all, this blog was initially intended to be mostly about food and drink.
I did eat Currywurst while I was there but seeing as I talk about it a lot anyway I'm not going to write about it. I'm going to stray away from my favourite food obsession (sausages) for the first post, despite eating a lot of them.

While at the supermarket in Weinheim I was dared by my friend (Adrian, who I was staying with) to try a German snack delicacy: mettbötchen. Never to shy away from a challenge (especially a food related one - I never learned my lesson from the orange eating contest...) I was keen to give it a go, I also wanted a tasty mid morning snack. Mettbrötchen in essence is a roll filled with seasoned raw pork mince and onion. At first it doesn't sound appetising (and I'm sure there's some "rule" about not eating raw pork) but once you have one in your hand the smell of fresh meat, onion and white pepper has you salivating. It's a pretty tasty snack. The seasoning on the pork and the onion create a really nice flavour together and the texture difference between the mince and the crunchy onion is great (different textures within food is something which I really like and feel is generally over looked by a lot of people).
As the mettbötchen was chilled I thought that it also made it quite refreshing. It was a pretty cold, wet and miserable day but I couldn't help think that on a hot sunny day a mettbötchen would really hit the spot. My main meat snack of choice is the steakbake. Served hot (well, at varying temperatures between "burn your face off" and "cold and soggy") it makes a good snack for Scotland's average weather conditions, but on a hot sunny day it just doesn't hit the mark. A mettbötchen on the other hand, with it's cold soft mince, would go down a treat. The question is: can I convince Greggs to start selling them. I'm thinking not, raw pork mince isn't going to go down well with your average customer. Which leaves me thinking that I might be able to find a friendly butcher to create one for me, but alas, they're unlikely to have the onion to go with it. I suppose I could start making my own, but it takes away the quick easy on-the-go appeal, that and my co-worker might start looking at me funny and talking behind my back when I nip down to the butchers for some raw pork at lunchtime.
If you're in Germany (or anywhere else - let me know where if in Edinburgh!) and you see mettbötchen then I strongly* recommend that you try one. The Germans have got it right once again.
* Disclaimer: I don't really know if eating raw pork is advised so if you've got a sensitive stomach you probably want to wimp out give mettbötchen a miss.