Gingerbread in september
This summer felt like one thing in particular: short. When I think about it, even extremely short. As soon as the ice saints were over, the days were already getting shorter again. Everything completely subjective, I know. Of course, the summers of my childhood have not been a day longer. But at that time, six weeks of summer holidays still felt like an eternity. The fact that this phenomenon has to do with age, I know. Does that make it better? Not for me. At the most, it calms down that I'm obviously not alone with this feeling. In addition to the age, it is above all the retail trade that regularly sets the season carousel going again.
I was really aware of this last week when I was shopping at Ullrich at Bahnhof Zoo. I pushed past my over-sized cart of charcoal and garden torches, turned towards vegetables and almost slammed into a pallet of gingerbread. She had not been there a week earlier. If I recall correctly, there had been the action offer corner of some heavy summer drink. So now gingerbread. Behind the Christmas-like pastry pyramid I discovered more pallets with dominoes, speculoos and cinnamon stars. I pushed up my sunglasses and looked at my feet, which were sock-less in their sandals. My goosebumps ran down my back even though they were 25 degrees outside and the sun was falling. Christmas had lurked me in early September and caught me cold.
Normally I like gingerbread as well as diapers or motor oil: I do not need it, I do not pay attention and I do not buy it. But this totally unexpected confrontation with the Christmas sweets had me out of balance. I watched my hand reflexively grab a bag of speculoos and drop them into the cart. Then I quickly bought the remaining ingredients for the planned light summer dish with chicken and left the grocery store. On the way home, I looked for telltale signs of an early Christmas. Fir trees made of plastic with spray snow, baubles in the shop window displays, anything like that. Nothing, not even a lost Santa Claus. People walked around in shorts and tank tops and the ubiquitous tourists blocked the sidewalks as usual.
My fiancé raised both eyebrows questioningly as I unpacked my purchases, popping up the bag of speculoos. With normal skepticism she raises an eyebrow? both eyebrows above means maximum lack of understanding. "Do not ask anything," I said, "that was not me. That was my other self.? Her eyebrows moved another inch toward the hairline. I grabbed the specula, mumbled something about? For research purposes? and disappeared into my study. There was some point in having this bad buy, so I decided to really research the gingerbread phenomenon in September. I went up the computer and went on a virtual trip into the world of Christstollen and Co.
The retail trade, I learned, has the goodies known to me as Christmas cookies some time ago in? Autumn pastry? renamed. This also explains the sales start to the meteorological autumn beginning on the first of September. This is not regulated by law, as the dealers have a completely free hand. In the meantime, the church, more precisely Mr Thies Gundlach, in his capacity as Vice President of the Evangelical Church in Germany, complains: "The universal commercialization of the Christian festivals is not right for us." Aha, I thought, speculoos in autumn are therefore among the forbidden fruits. That makes her a little more interesting.
However, Hermann Bühlbecker, owner of the big gingerbread manufacturer Lambertz, sees things completely differently from Mr. Thies: "We have long since solved the biscuits from Christmas by combining them with autumn." Church and consumption, the eternal dispute. The traders have probably flown out of the temple more than 2000 years ago because they sold gingerbread in the fall. 900 grams, I read, is the annual per capita consumption of autumn or Christmas cookies. Since I had met with my 200 grams of speculum already a good fifth of my target. Great.
On the sidelines I got to see how my fiance came into the room and grabbed the speculum. I read on. From mid-October, the Santas made of chocolate will close to the gingerbread vanguard. Meanwhile, Mr Bühlbecker is sitting at home watching the thermometer and hoping for a temperature drop. "We hope it gets cooler, then people grab more." I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. It was dim, the curtains closed, and a candle burning on the table. "Sit down," said my fiancée and poured me a cup of tea, "it's already our first Advent." She pushed the plate of speculoos over to me. I reached for it.
And my tip? Very easily: Speculoos also taste better in September, when you dip them briefly in hot tea. Honestly. Buy now 
Close Up Grass and KOKS for Un-dependent in a set of 2 - Fun joke articles, tea & glucose 9,90 ?
