Okay, now it’s time to talk about something that is very important in Germany: ice cream. Seriously, little ice cream shops (or at least places that sell ice cream, if not solely ice cream shops) are like Starbucks in America. No matter where you are, you can walk two blocks in any direction and find some way to curb your Eis (ice cream) craving. Fun fact: someone here told me that Germans eat the most ice cream per capita in the world, but I just looked it up and that is not the case. It’s America. But whatever, we just eat Ben and Jerry’s out of the container with a spoon, which is probably why. Germans have class—their Kugeln (scoops) are nice and small, perfectly portioned so you can have a scoop or two, and it’s the perfect amount for dessert. They have some pretty funky flavors, too, which usually turn out to be incredible. For example, I have had poppy seed, peanut-caramel, cucumber-lemon-mint, and sesame seed—all out of this world good.
Me at this incredible little ice cream parlor in Kreuzberg–Fraulein Frost. See how the line is out the door? Yeah, that’s for a reason. My poppy seed ice cream was truly a religious experience.
Another nice thing about German ice cream is that there are a lot of small, locally-owned, hip, homemade ice cream parlors around. It’s not like there’s a Baskin-Robbins chain equivalent and that’s it. A lot of the ice cream is made with love and passion, which really shows in the taste and texture.
One last thing on German ice cream: Spaghettieis, a German favorite. It’s vanilla ice cream put through one of those play-dough presses that makes it come out looking like spaghetti noodles, and then strawberry or raspberry sauce on top. I went to one of those little, locally-owned, love-filled ice cream shops to get my Spaghettieis, so the strawberry sauce was made from fresh strawberries. It sounds simple, but it was delicious.
My Spaghettieis with two little wafers stuck in it.