Hail Thee,

> Hmmm... foreigners always seem to think the vinegar thing is weird.

Yep, correct :) I've been to various countries by now, with the notable exception of England (which gets corrected in 3 weeks). Nowhere have I encountered vinegar as a topping for fries. It gets used mainly as a toping for salad which is: a) cold and often moist, b) not fried, c) not salty and d) tastes good with a vinegar sauce.

> Never understood that myself. I suppose it's what you grow up with.

HeHe, verty likely. We Germans have, in turn, a problem with getting others to understand our appreciation for "Sauerkraut". We do also get blamed for "Schnitzel", which is unfair, since it is an Austrian export.

> Peppermint would be horrible - no arguments there.

*smiles*
In my experience "Mint" gets equalled with "Peppermint" very easily, almost automatically. I think I'll have to reread "Asterix and the British". There was definitly a lot of mint sauce in there, but I dont remember whether it was called "peppermint sauce" :)

> So we use applemint instead.
> I thought that was a world-wide thing, but obviously it's not reached Germany yet.

Hmmm, might be. I do not know a single German dish that uses mint as an ingredient. Nor does any recipy that my wife and me aver cooked require mint. In Germany it's definitely an "alien" ingredient. I cant comment on other countries, though. Up to now I thought that England was the primary mint nation of this here planet :-)

> > Let me get this straight : you would dip something coated with a 1mm layer of salt into a milkshshake ?
>
> If there's much salt on the chips, it doesn't work. I don't like salt much on my chips, anyway.

We were talking about Mc Donalds fries here, right ? They put an absolutely excessive amount of salt on their fries.

> Oh, and I hope you enjoy London (and traditional British cuisine) when you get here.

Thank you, we definitely plan to do so. And in the name of scientific interest we will sample as much British cuisine as possible. I even have a good friend amongst the natives of this strange country, who promised to prove to me that my "stupid notions" are soooo wrong :-)

Dang, if I really should happen to like the food, I will have to look for new things to tease him with ...

*drags a new horror story from the depth of memory*

What about eggs ? I heard that in England you eat your eggs all runny, almost raw ?

--
Stephan