Germany

Germany doesn't have a great reputation worldwide for the quality or uniqueness of its food. The only even remotely famous foods are sausages (or wurste), schntizel, and sauerkraut. While all of these are delicious and widely available in Germany, they do very little justice to the quality and variety of food available here. In Germany as in the UK, the immigrant population has brought with it a wide range of restuarants and takeout food from diverse ethnic origins. Whether you want Italian, Turkish, North-African or East Asian foods, you will find it somewhere in Germany. And if that's not enough I guess you can always go to McDonalds.

Self-catering

Germany is the home of the discount supermarket, and there are certainly branches of Lidl and Aldi on every street corner in many cities. These are perfect for picking up supplies if you are cooking in a hostel, or have a kitchen to prepare lunches for a week, but if you just looking for lunch for one which can be prepared on the road you might find you are better off in an ordinary supermarket or delicatessen. Take advantage of your location to try some of the more interesting foods eaten in Germany. Even the cheaper stores are likely to have tubs of Herring, pickled and served in cream sauce, and jars of pickles. Also try a range of different sausages. Whilst some of the more revered and famous types taste little better than the cheapest hot-dog weiners, there is a huge variety and at least one for every taste.

Beware of deposits on bottles and drink containers of all kinds in Germany. The word for depost is pfand, and the amount you will have to pay is normally listed next to the price of the product on the shelf. Ideally you should just use the contents and take the container back for recycling like a good citizen - you will then get your deposit back and everybody will be happy. If you are leaving the country however, or just can't be bothered to deal with an added transaction in a strange language, you can avoid paying deposits for most things by buying them in tetra-pak style cardboard cartons.

Drinks

Beer.

In the west of Germany, beer tends to be served in measures of 0.2 and 0.4l on draft, and is quite expensive at around 3 euros for a large beer. In the south and east the larger measure is usually a 0.5l, often with the option of a litre stein, and prices are likely to be lower even for the larger portion. Bottles are usually 0.5l everywhere, and will incur a deposit (pfand). Germans are rightly very proud of their beer, which compared with much European (and virtually all American) beer is tasty and strong (Usually around 5% alcohol by volume, but with stronger beers available). It also has very few impurities. As in the rest of the world, most German brands are now owned by large multinational brewing conglomerates, but strongly-held beliefs amongst the German population are likely to keep the actual product brewed in much the same places and in the same way for a good while to come.

Wine.

Germany is not a huge wine drinking country, and particularly in bars it is very much more normal to drink beer than wine. That is not to say that Germany does not produce good wine however. The Rhine and Saar valleys make a large quantity or typically fairly sweet white wine which goes quite well with the fairly stodgy traditional food.

Schnapps.

Schnapps is a sweet strong liqueur made typically from peach or cherry, but also from other kinds of fruit. This is the typical drink of choice for toasts in Germany.

Coffee.

You can get a perfectly good cup of coffee in Germany, although the quality is far from guaranteed. Look out for cafes which give plenty of prominence to their coffee machine, and avoid places which are really more bars than cafes. Nescafe signs outside a cafe are rarely a good sign. Also bear in mind that there is a different between Milch-Koffee (latte) and Koffee mit milch (typically coffee filter or instant coffee served with milk).