Dinner time Germany!

Authors: Katarina Schickling. Human interest - WDR, NDR, BR - 2009 - 3 x 45 Min., 3 x 30 min

One might ask what smelling, tasting and enjoying has to do with German history... the answer is that food is one of our most intensive experiences and everyone has a favourite recipe that takes them back in time. How much did our grandparents enjoy their first, fatty joint of roast pork after the war, how exciting did our mothers find their first hamburgers with real, exorbitantly priced, ketchup, and how hip did we think we were the first time we ate sweet and sour chicken? And how naturally today's teenagers order Sashimi etc. Recipes recall memories in an even more powerful way than photos in a family album. They bring events and people back to life. All together, they take us on a collective journey through the history of our country.

Dinner Time Germany! is a voyage of the senses through German cooking from the post-war era to the present day. In three episodes we set off in search of the connection between historical cause and culinary effect. We come face to face with the history and events, the places and people who have influenced our eating preferences. We talk to cookery experts, connoisseurs, creators, culinary trendsetters and the more ordinary eaters who love a slap-up meal. They all accompany us on an entertaining expedition through three ages of German cooking.

Never before has what and how we eat and changed so much as in the past decade: From meagre wartime fare, to luxurious butter cream cakes reminiscent of the economic miracle, from early forays into fast food ŕ la "Wienerwald", to new economy sushi. If there is anything to the saying "you are what you eat!" then our cooking and eating habits are a mirror of social-political conditions and times of change. That will also be reflected in Dinner Time Germany! but without using to the framework of a retro-cookery show.

Dinner Time Germany! is the story of times and experiences passed - garnished with the best and worst of Germany cooking.