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This is a Brathering.*

It’s a herring that’s been gutted, fried and marinated in brine. Very tasty. Seriously.

It’s the pronunciation that’s a bit tricky.

For Anglo-Saxons, it’s “gathering” with a “b”.

For Germans, it’s Brat (fried) Hering (herring).

Two words, joined in the middle.

It’ll trip you up every time when you’re new to the game.

Turn the clock back 30 some years to my first week of work in Germany.

New to the game.

Totally innocent of these semantic nuances, I’m in the canteen where they have this strange object on the menu. (A lot of objects were strange in those days….)

So I ask the obvious question:

“Was ist ein Brathering?”

Anglo-Saxon pronunciation inclusive.

Much rolling around on the ground from the guy I was with.

You would have thought he would have forgotten it by now.

Not a chance.

“Let’s go and have a Brathering, Johnny”

Anglo-Saxon pronunciation inclusive.

And then, of course, there’s the

– Springtime Special Offer

Gets me very time. (Are they constipated for the rest of the year, or what…?)

*Buy them here