Incoherent Scribblings

Pork Chops and Sideburns

Today I went on my weekly grocery shopping expedition. Unlike many Germans, I have a freezer. So instead of the hassle of buying fresh meat daily, when we go to the store I buy enough to last us for about two weeks and then I freeze it when I get home.

Because I don’t find the beef in Germany particularly good, we eat a lot of pork. Pork chops are great: they freeze well and are quick to prepare. “Pork chop” happened to be a word that I learned in German fairly early on. Not only was I presented with it from the advertisements behind the meat counter, it was in Lesson 5 of German 1: Food, and to top it all off, it is one of those words that are very similar to English. The German word for pork chop (sometimes referred to as cutlet) is Kotelett.

At first when I wasn’t yet very comfortable with German, I would have A. order everything and do all the talking. Grocery shopping in this manner was very frustrating. A. and I would have these lengthy discussions before we went to the store about what I wanted, but then when we got there it would turn out more often than not that he didn’t know the proper word for what I wanted in German. Or, in the case of meat, they didn’t offer the same cuts of meat in Germany as in the US. So, somewhere along the way I started doing the talking.

We go to the same store about every two weeks, so the butcher there knows me. Not on first name basis or anything, but he knows that I usually get some “mixed meat,” some pork chops, some chicken, and sometimes some sausage.

However, today the lady that was doing the meat usually does the cheese. So, I asked her for my mixed meat with no problems, but when I asked for “vier Koteletten” she seemed puzzled. After a little discussion, she figured out what I wanted. Now, my pronunciation in German is not that greatest. I admit it. So, I figured that when the cheese & meat lady didn’t understand what I wanted, it was the fault of my pronunciation. I told her that though the word in English was similar to that in German I couldn’t pronounce it very well and to please forgive me. She asked me the word in English and I told her “cutlet.” She said she understood that fine and so I made a note to myself that from now on I would just pronounce “Kotelett” like “cutlet.”

On the way home, I told A. about my encounter with the cheese & meat lady and after a pause he asked me if I used the plural of Kotelett.

“Sure.” I said. “I needed four pork chops.”

“What is the plural ending for Kotelett anyway?” I asked.

” ‘S,’ I think,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said, “I used ‘N.’ When in doubt about the plural ending in German I tend to go with ‘N.’ ”

He started laughing and said “Oh, now I know why she didn’t understand you. You asked her for four sideburns!”

Note: When I got home I looked up cutlet and sideburn in my trusty English/German dictionary. Sure enough cutlet = Kotelett (-s) and sideburn = Kotelett (-en)!