Eating in Europe: When You Fail at Weisswurst, Head for McDonalds...or Not

If you had wandered into a Munich eatery and decided to celebrate your safe arrival by downing a few of the city's famous weisswurst, would you have had the presence of mind to grab a hold of one and "snip open the ends and suck out the meat?"

Welcome to the delightfully confusing world of eating customs in Europe.

I don't mean to scare you. Much of the food in Europe looks exactly the way it might be served in the US and is eaten in a similar manner. It turns out that the knives and forks work so much the same over there that the first-time visitor might be surprised at how easy it is to operate them without knowing the language. Still, there are times when you have to give the old, dumb stare to what you've ordered before tearing into it like a rabid dog.

The rabid dog thing is my defense against looking stupid when I can't find a waiter who can explain things in my language. "He's excused; you see he's hungry! Look at him tear into that! Mom would be proud that her beloved weisswurst is being devoured in such a lusty manner!" (World Hum offers a great primer on eating weisswurst in Munich, if you'd rather not look like a madman at dinner time.)

Of course, you can avoid all this trouble and interaction with locals by slipping into the local McDonalds. McDonalds is growing faster in Europe than it is in the US. It's growing so fast in fact that the French have started putting money where their taste is; Paris has raised 42 million bucks to keep McDonald's and its ilk out of the Left Bank, according to Gadling.

The subject, my fellow travelers, is purity of place:

Over the next three years, any commercial building that comes up for sale in this area will only be offered up to those who want to start things like bookshops or arty cinemas. ~ Paris rallies against consumerism

The trouble is, nobody reads books any more, even in Paris. The state representative in charge of economic development Michel Lalande ponied up a pithy rebuttal to the not-so-well thought out plan:

"Preserving these bookshops is all very well, but what would be even better is if tourists and Parisians actually went to them."

Right. Perhaps what Paris lacks is quality television advertising aimed at making their youth into happy believers. Did you know that:

In one study children thought the carrot sticks that come in a bag with a McDonalds' logo tasted better than those with a plain wrapper. And the more televisions in the home, the greater the effect.

Interesting, no? And we don't have to worry about the demise of books, because just reading McDonald's fact sheets can exercise your mind like a thriller penned in crayon by a lunatic. Witness:

In one year...Numbers Tell the Quality & Choice Story:

McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom served enough fresh grapes and apples from its fruit bags to provide more than one serving of fruit to every man, woman and child who lived in New York City.

Well, certainly this proves, um, well, perhaps we should have a poll. It proves what? I'm as confused as a journalist in front of his first weisswurst right now. Perhaps you can explain this to me in the comments. I have to go now. I'm hungry.

^{Picture of a salad © by James Martin, licensed to About.com. Salad? What are those brown chips on top? Shaved truffles? Yes, a plethora of shaved truffles! Yum! And just think--this is just part of the appetizer course at Osteria del Cucco in Urbania in Italy's Marche region. You should go--instead of McDonalds for sure.}