Superfood in the Times of Cold War

They were laughing about us and declaring us outright crazy.

"You guys eat kale raw?" Shuddering "You make salad out of it?"

The year was 1989 and Angy and I had decided that enough is enough - we could not wait till next summer to eat something fresh and green. Winter was good for cole slaw, onions and old apples, sometimes carrots and Christmas for Cuban oranges. Oh and pickles...

But green kale had to be cooked until it turned into a grey mash. Maybe with smoked bacon and onions. Like all the other proper winter vegetables- (old potatoes, cabbage, kale and maybe turnips- but I would not know about them, there were kind of taboo in my family, my grandparents overate on them during the first world war) you boiled it until it surrendered.

Never raw!

Here we were with our invention. We bought each day a bag of kale, and made a big bowl of salad using buttermilk as dressing. (no, we did not have olive oil ever, and lemons not very often)

We should have patented it, as communist dictatorship survival food. Because survive we did. That should be enough proof.

Maybe we were just shitty at promoting it. Superfood sounds so much better.

The thought that we could be the better people and mother earth would shriek with delight because of our food choices did not cross our minds ever.

This is what happens when you got an egoistic one-party dictatorship brainwashing you from early age on.

Somehow we did not even think about the vitamins and antioxidants and minerals and fiber in it, we just liked it. How naive it seems now to have eaten vegetables for the simple reason of liking them. And meat was more expensive. We rather spend our money on booze. That was cheap too.

Nobody ever told us there to eat kohlrabi, tomatoes, cucumbers or asparagus. You just ate them whenever you got them. That was not very often. A good way to force people to eat something is not having it in abundance or rationing it. Better then giving it out for free. Then most people think there is something wrong with it. " Why are they throwing this broccoli after us? Must be really bad for you, make you fat or something..."

Arguable back then we might not have taken the broccoli either, even if they had rationed it. Because we would not have known what to do with it. Never saw one until we were allowed to join the civilized west. And then for sure most east Germans cooked it until butter-soft and rejected all attempts to feet them crunchy vegetables. (“This west Germans are soo cheap, they don't even cook their veggies properly because it cost them too much energy.")

My first pineapple came with a care-packet from the west. For some reasons my grandparents, who had lived in the terrible times long before socialism, when the working class was either starving or considered that having a salted herring with the week old dry bread equals a great party, had eaten pineapples before. Oh, but then, my family was not working class...we belong to the subgroup of " others". (my father managed to sneak into the leading class, e.g. the working class by doing an apprenticeship as brick layer before becoming an engineer) Anyway, grandma knew how to peel and cut it and we all started to devouring big chunks until nothing was left. More then it being very delicious, I remember how my tongue hurt quite some time after.

Ten years later, in Christmas 1988 I got my first taste of a mango. A friend of mine had some student mates from Mozambique. They invited us for a Christmas mango dinner. I do not remember their names or faces, all I remember is us four, sitting around a cheap plastic table, in the huge ugly cafeteria of their student resident. In the middle of the table was a plate, on this plate proudly sat a mango. (I think the one guy got the mango mailed from home by his parents) " What now?" we asked, after an appropriated silence. " Well we eat it." they responded. "But how?" So they showed us, slicing it up and feeding us little pieces, dividing this mango in exactly four parts. I am sure we giggled and shrieked. And, oh my, was it ever delicious. So tasty, sweet, fruity- on of the best things I had ever eaten. Mangos became one of my favourite foods and still are now, where I can buy them whenever I want. The poor guys meanwhile might have hoped to get laid by sharing a mango, but not with us...we were just so proud of ourselves that we were not racist, that we did not even consider our friends from Africa reacting like any other guys on a date... That was that.

Another favorite fruit of mine are kiwis. When I was in about grade five our relatives from the west German wonderland came visiting - and brought some kiwis. I organized a guided tour for my school friends through our kitchen. Everybody was allowed to touch and smell (no, we were not that communist, the kiwi eating was restricted to close family members) and then we discussed if it is useful to have a fruit that taste like a mix of strawberries and gooseberries. It certainly was...ha-ha, I told my envious comrades the next day in school. This example might show as well how difficult it is, to built an egalitarian society. Some people had kiwis and others had not, and the one with the kiwis did not always wanted to share. Just like now with the money.

Maybe the North Korean Semi God is right - kimchi for everybody and nothing else. Even the friends from Peta should be happy about this low carbon, animal friendly life style. And then you can build as many nuclear and hydrogen bombs as your heart desires.