Pfannkuchen or Pannekoek?

National pride at the supper table.

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I ate pancakes with creamed spinach and apple sauce for dinner yesterday. Every night, somewhere around half-past six, I sit down at the dining room table with my au-pair family. Most of the time that means I’m joined by three kids and their two parents; though play-dates, soccer practice and unplanned work calls sometimes interfere with our routine. I cook supper a couple times a week, but the pancakes weren’t my stroke of genius. Pancakes (the flat, German kind as opposed to the fluffy, American ones) is a recurring dish in our home, we eat them twice or three times a month. The pancakes are smaller and thicker than crêpes, and the batter is salted rather than sweetened. We almost always put creamed spinach and apple sauce on the table as accompaniments. The toppings are designed to be eaten separately, but I can’t say that I haven’t witnessed unsanctioned mingling.

When I lived in Cape Town with my parents, we ate a lot of pancakes, too. They were usually a special breakfast. On the morning of my twenty-third birthday, my mom stood, attentive, in front of the gas stove in our little kitchen. She wore her denim apron and held a bright pink silicone spatula at the ready in one hand. My dad, my girlfriend and I sat opposite her at the kitchen counter, plates empty. We all took turns eating the pancakes, steaming, straight from the pan. South African pancakes are more closely related to their French cousins than their German ones, and my toppings of choice have historically been sweet. After dabbling with chocolate sauce and golden syrup in my childhood, I have decided that my dad’s dressing of choice is superior, each pancake the two of us ate on the morning of my twenty-third was identical. Cinnamon sugar, honey, lemon juice. A far cry from the now seemingly healthy, German alternative. In our home pancakes were reserved, mostly, for slow Saturday mornings, for family vacations and birthdays, for sick-days and visits to my grandparents. Always sweet. Always an occasion.

I do this a lot. At German school, at dinner with my girlfriend’s family, at picnics with my girlfriend’s friends, many of my sentences start with, “in South Africa we…” I have become a bootleg ambassador. From braaiing to load-shedding, I have fielded many a question, delicately asked by an inquisitive, well-meaning European. I have also relished the shocked look I occasionally receive when I tell said European just how much meat we eat at Christmas, or that my dad (along with loads of other South Africans) considers shoes to be optional. I like being African in Europe. I like feeling connected to the country I’m in now, and feeling connected to another home, where the people dance and eat and speak differently. I like feeling like there’s a secret place I can escape to, the place that shaped me.

What I am finding, though, is that I almost always mention the ‘South African way’. It was totally foreign to me to put spinach on my pancakes, which I was served for supper. One thought stuck me: is julle mal? Don’t get me wrong, it’s tasty. I was very satisfied with my dinner last night, but the strangeness of this place compared to the one I was born in isn’t lost on me. It seems like, where ever I go, I carry my country with me—this is the way we do it. It’s funny—South Africa is so wide and diverse that there is hardly ever a consensus on how we do something, and yet I still have a sense that I am tied to our way, no matter how many ways we have. Little things. The colour of the ambulances. The McDonalds menu. Sidewalk etiquette. I always consider the ways in which this place is different. I like to believe that I don’t cast a negative light on one culture or the other, though I doubt I am always neutral.

I wrote in my journal last week, and indeed in many other journals, that I would like to make Germany my home. I wonder if my continued, involuntary comparison is robbing me of accepting this place? I wonder if, when I visit South Africa again, I will take one glance at the roads or the restaurants and think, “this isn’t the way we do it in Germany…” I think, though, that I can quell these concerns with considerable confidence. I am certain that there is enough room on my plate for spinach pancakes and cinnamon ones. I will, no doubt, continue to act as an unelected ambassador for my country. I suspect, though, that I may one day represent more than just one flag.

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I mean, really, spinach? If you enjoyed this journal, please share it with some you love.