Cultural Assimilation?

I did a very German thing the other day...I went to Kaufland with the express purpose of purchasing Leberwurst. Directly translated, that's Liverwurst, just like we have it in the States. Except in Germany, instead of buying it as a cooked sausage and eating it sliced with various and sundry items on a sandwich (not sure I could ever do that with it), people buy it as sort of a pâté-like spread. I first tried it a couple of months ago when I went to spend the weekend with my friend Friedie and her family. They had a couple of different meat spreads out with dinner, and watching everyone else eating it, I figured I might as well give the stuff a try. (Sidenote: I adore the semi-traditional German dinner that is "Abendbrot". Literally, "evening bread", you can sit down and have wine and all kinds of sparkling juice schorles with a big spread of bread, cheeses, meats, jams, etc, and just build your own open-faced sandwiches, essentially. So excellent). With my now-or-never attitude taking over, I spread a rather dainty amount on my bread and gave it a whirl, hoping I wasn't giving away the fact that I'd never had it before and was veeery skeptical. Liking me as much as they do and knowing that I'm American (and also being some of the nicest people on the planet, and presumably not having seen anything like it when they visited my family in Hanover), I doubt they cared or would have been offended, but still, I felt odd. Initially, I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I didn't dislike it, but couldn't decide if I was at all keen on the taste. Then a few minutes later, I just sort of automatically went for some more without thinking and figured, hey, if my hands are putting it on the bread, I'll go with it.


I caught myself thinking about it a few days ago, and decided if it wasn't too pricey, I'd get some for myself at Kaufland. The Leberwurst I got isn't quite as fancy as what Friedie's family had of course, but I think it's quite good, and I've been enjoying it in small quantities on my favorite seeded bread. I've even discovered that it's incredibly delicious (and, you know, super healthy) with herb frischkaese spread on top of it. The trick, of course, is not to have too much of either, so that your bread isn't overloaded and you have a nice balance of flavor (and calories!), but it's preeetty hard to mess it up.