Now that the weather is getting cold as soon as the sun goes time, it might be a good time for another entry of the “another day another rant” kind about things noone really cares about. Well, here we go. Some days I get a little peckish between regular meals and that’s when I like to get me a roll with “Butterkäse”. Unfortunately, for some reason, this is not possible in regular supermarkets.

Of course, you can buy “Butterkäse” and rolls seperately, and then make your own roll, but if you haven’t got the tools with you the usual way is to order “a roll with butterkäse” at the meat/cheese/bread-desk in your supermarket. And even though they do have rolls and butterkäse seperately, they won’t give it to you together. They will give you Gouda instead. Now, Gouda is as close to Butterkäse as you can get in the world of cheese and this is like if you can’t have Jennifer Aniston but Courtney Cox is available for a date, why not? But Jennifer Aniston is right around the corner, so there. What are you gonna do?
Leaving aside the few instances, where the service assistant wanted to give me a roll with butter and cheese or the other instance where the clerk looked at me and said “we don’t have puten käse” (poultry cheese??), this is the basic dialogue you will get:
Me: “I’d like a roll with Butterkäse, please.”
Clerk: “Sorry, we don’t have Butterkäse. Is Gouda okay.?”
Me: “Sure.”
As simple as it is not understandable. But there are so many nice variations that I just keep on asking for Gouda. There is the angry “Hamma net. Gouda könnens haben.” (”No possible. Take Gouda.”) and the desperatae “Aaaah, no, there’s Gouda instead.” There is the evil look, the chaotic what am I gonna do now and the look that says, who do you think you are. But yesterday I reached a new height of customer service, when the clerk turned around after my order without blinking, put Gouda into my roll and handed it to me. That is true Viennese service orientation.

I think I’ll change to Liptauer.

Because Liptauer is another word I can’t translate into English.