Having left Mariel end the spiritual community in Fredericia, crossed the German border and arrived in Flensburg with Saad and Abd El-Aziz I find a small beach, where I set up my tent and stay for the night.

The next day I have my breakfast at a café at the beach consider which way to go on southwards: southwest towards Amsterdam with Brussels nearby, London in the vicinity and Paris lurking in the far distance; straight south through Germany; or take the Eastern European route. I take a range of different factors into account: relations, imagined economic opportunities, the experience of coming destinations from a cultural and gastronomical perspective, and whether I would like a longer stay somewhere or taking a string of shorter stays. Since I have no decisive means of prioritizing these factors, I am basically considering whether apples, pears, or perhaps blackberries, is the best choice. I land on relations as the decisive factor, and since I have a friend in Amsterdam and also know someone in Brussels, I decide to go southwest towards Amsterdam.

By Myself but not Alone

Saad doesn´t respond to my messages, which is ok, since I would like to be a bit on my on having met so many people in the last couple of days. In the early evening I take a leisurely bike ride along the Flensburg harbor, stop at some point not too crowded, place my bike there, walk some three meters away from the bike tand sit down to relax and eat the fast food I had just bought. I realize that my desire to be alone with my thoughts for a while makes me not react when a guy comes along and stops right in front of my heavily loaded tramp-like bike, but instead just continue eating and look around at the small crowd. Since there are others closer to the bike than me, I hope to not attract his attention. Still not seeing the owner of the bike after close inspection, the guy starts dancing. But after a while our eyes meet, and, being asked, I confess to being the owner, and then get caught in a conversation about bicycles.

Hospitality and a Conversation on Caravans and Oases in Flensburg.

Denmark is playing against Croatia this evening and the guy, whose name is Heinrich, invites me to join him watching the game. We watch the game, have some beers, and the talk goes and we get silly. At some point Heinrich invites me to stay the night at his home. Besides obviously being generous, Heinrich is a spiritual person.

So we talk about spirituality and, of course about foraging, and food and climate change. He also introduces me to his concepts of oases and caravans. Oases seems the most easy of the two concepts to get a hold of. As I understood it, he thinks of communities that are spiritual in some way or other. Caravans, as I understood it, are basically the same, but on the move instead of being in one place. 

The whole culture around the game of soccer here in Europe, reveals a phenomenon that contrasts with my own psyche, which makes me think about and tell Heinrich about my basically stoic approach to life and emotions. I like stability without too great ups and downs. We agree that with the soccer fan culture follows a sort of emotional enslavement, requiring depression, when your team loses, and ecstasy in case of victory. Heinrich tells me that he, after all, appreciates the ups and down. Of course its a matter of the level of these ups and downs, I also wouldn´t be completely without them. But, still, to have my mood decided by some constantly recurring cultural events that have nothing to do with my private life, is never going to happen. Less than a month after this game, that ended Denmark´s participation in the World Cup, I had completely forgotten, who was the victorious team, but Heinrich´s concepts of caravans and oases stays with me, and does the memory of meeting him and enjoying his generosity, the great conversations and his delicious porridge and coffee.

Eating the Countryside

Despite Heinrich´s offer of letting me stay another night on a farm on the countryside I leave Flensburg the day going towards Kiel. On the road I scan the roadsides and I gradually realize that the German state of Schleswig-Holstein is a land of meadowsweet. As I stop the bike to gather some of these bittersweet marzipan flavored goodies, a local bicyclist stops thinking I need help or directions or something like that. I tell him, thank you but that I don´t and introduce him to the wild plant and its taste. Maybe I inspired him, who knows? Anyway, I get inspired by the Schlewsig-Hostein countryside experience and two recipes develop in my mind:

No Tella Nut Feast

The No Tella Nut Feast is is a rethinking of the wellknown hazelnut and cocoa based paste. It is part of a potential series called Palms Off, a dedication to food that eases the destruction caused by deforestation for palm oil plantations. Any alternative choice of ingredients that alleviates this destruction by reducing the dependency on palm oil, is a potential product in this series. The No Tella Nut Feast, therefore, is made using some neutral tasting oil other than palm oil, mixed in the blender with 70% chocolate, a desired amount of meadowsweet and why be contend with one type of nuts when you can have a feast of all the tastes and nutrients found in a combination like hazelnut, walnut and brazilnut. From this powerful nut feast, not only do you get the protein that everybody is so concerned with, but also one of the best sources of omega-3-fatty acids, (the walnuts), and selenium, (the brazil nuts), as well as, curiously less attention-drawing nutrients such as thiamin, vitamin E and C, folate, iron, magnesium, potassium, zink, phosphorus, omega-6-fatty acids and fiber. (Fiber is mentioned in Dr. Greger´s heavily researched book “How not to die” as one of the nutrients severely lacking from Americans, by the way, and can also be had by exchanging your wheat based bread with the Northern European style black rye-based bread).

Making the No tella Nut Feast is easy. Put the ingredients, chocolate bars of 70% cocoa, the almond or marzipan flavored meadowsweet, hazelnuts, walnuts and brazil nuts in a blender and add any neutral tasting cooking oil other than palm oil until it has the right texture.

Wild, Sweet Schleswig-Holsteiner Salad

The Wild Schleswig-Hosteiner Salad can be gathered in mostly in open spaces on the countryside, at least in Denmark and Northern Germany, but the ingredients can be found in much wider regions.

It is a sweet midsummer salad made up from cherries, raspberries, chicory, wood sorrel, meadowsweet and the short leafstalks of the Japanese knotweed the only part, besides the not so tasty leaves, that is guaranteed to be both sweet, soft and easily chewable. All of the ingredients can be found in open countryside habitats, except the wood sorrel that grow on the ground in pine forests.   

Going Southwest, Changing My Mind, and Arriving in Berlin – Just in Time for Contemplations on the Diamond Industry

Going southwest i have a one-night stay in Kiel and in Hamborg, where I watch another World Cup match while eating a delicious pizza at the harbor front, and conversating with two friendly sisters. I have a stay in the lovely cosy Bremen, also, that has an atmosphere somewhat like San Francisco, except it´s less crowded, its doesn´t have the steep hills, and, in my experience, the summer in Bremen is warmer. I enjoyed a World Cup match and had some beers with the Bremeners, and some point I came to the realization that I need to go to Berlin. From a Copenhagener´s perspective the reasoning went as follows: Berlin has a vibrant restaurant and café environment, it is viewed as a city open to alternative perspectives. And I had the idea of delivering wild plants to these restaurants and cafés. Since I wish to utilize this potential without wasting any time, I took the train. There is no in option of long distance travel by bus bringing a bike with you, so, at a consumption level of 1.69 megajoules per passenger kilometre, the train offers the most sustainable option, if you don´t wish to spend several days on a bike.

I arrived in Berlin on the 19/7, and within an hour upon arrival found myself being provided a diamond expert´s insider perspectives on the moral character of the diamond industry.