Head cheese is the weirdest.
Well, in my defense, I didn't mean to eat head cheese. It just sort of happened by accident.
My mom and I were traveling through Germany, and we stopped at a little pub. We weren't all that hungry, but it was close to dinner time, so we decided to get something snackish.
Though I can shop fluently in German, I can get a bit jumbled when it comes to a menu.
I saw an entry that said something along the lines of:
Knopf kasse mit Brotte.
'Yay!" I said to my mom, "Let's have some bread and cheese with our room temperature beer!" So we ordered it.
When it came to the table, we noticed that this cheese looked odd. And smelled odd. But - some cheeses do, right? So we tucked in.
It definitely didn't taste like any cheese or cheeselike substance I'd ever had before. In fact, we honestly asked ourselves, "Hmmm, animal, vegetable, or mineral?" I called the waiter over and said in butchered German, "Was ist los mit der kasse?" "Was?" he asked and cocked his head sideways at me.
"Der kasse - das kasse - whatever. What is wrong with it? Wo? Kasse? Was ist los?"
"Ah!" the young man said, and smiled broadly. "Das ist KNOPF kasse! KNOPF Kasse. KNOPF." He tapped the side of his head. I reached up and touched my own head. "Das ist mein knopf?"
"Jawohl!" he said and beamed at me innocently.
"Errr, danke schonn. (Mom, don't eat it.) Danke schonn! (Mom, it's head cheese.) Bitte! (Yes, HEAD CHEESE.) Ja, ja - sehr gut! (Smile, Mom, just smile.) Danke! Tschuss!"
When he left, so pleased to have introduced us to their local specialty, my mom turned to me and whispered, "What do we do with it - should we just fold it in a napkin and stick it in our purses?" "Ja, ja, I mean yes!" I whispered back as I spit into my napkin.
