Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Spaghetti Bolognese for more poor Germans?

Today's print edition of German tabloid Bild Zeitung re-iterates a headline that has made the round for a few days through all major publications in the country.

Germany is seeing a rise in the number of poor people who need additional social security support because their fixed income is not enough to put food on the table and pay rent.

The Bild online edition has progressed to the next news cycle on the "Bling Bishop", a prince named George and other crap news.

A story we found in material written by a friend of  friend may be worth re-telling in this context.

A journalist friend of said friend was having a birthday bash with co-workers. She served spaghetti bolognese and a cheap local wine.

After dinner and a couple more glasses of wine, she asked everybody to accompany her into the kitchen and held up the cans of cat food that had been the main ingredient of her sauce a la Bolognese.

We don't know what she said, and we don't know if it is true that the editor in chief bolted for the bathroom.

She certainly had made her point, which was that cat food with extra spices can work.

We do have some doubt about the veracity of the anecdote after checking the cat food prices at the local grocery store.

The meat industry in Europe puts out products for humans that are cheaper than established cat food brands, another trend out of the U.S. that has taken hold in an ageing Europe.

So, we'll wait to see if Bild Zeitung and similar tabloids will run "food or rent" or "food or heating" stories in the future.

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