Getting Pickled in Germany

In 2003's bittersweet box office hit Goodbye Lenin!, set in East Berlin in 1989, actor Daniel Brühl sets out to convince his ailing mother, a faithful party member who missed the fall of the Berlin wall after she went into a coma, that her beloved East Germany is still alive and well.

Part of the deception involves keeping her regularly supplied with "Spreewald-Gurken," or gherkins. The trouble is, when the Stalinist state collapsed, her preferred brand went with it. Ingeniously, Brühl buys the standard Dutch gherkins stocked in West German supermarkets and repackages them as his mother's favourite pickle.

International audiences might not have identified with this particular communist-era culinary foible, but it seems that she wasn't the only East German with a fondness for Spreewald-Gurken. Goodbye Lenin! ushered in a wave of "Ostalgie," nostalgia for life in the days of Soviet rule, that still shows no signs of letting up.

Gherkin specialties

With Spreewald gherkins more popular than ever, manufacturers have now developed a "gherkin brew," which premiered on Sunday at the racing season's final event at the Hoppegarten tracks outside Berlin.

Astonishingly, some 400 liters of Gherkin Brew were downed by thirsty visitors within just two hours, who said it went perfectly with the menu of rabbit stuffed with gherkin, followed by gherkin cake.

Specially brewed for the race-track's in-house catering service, the beverage also comes in an alcohol-free version. Cheers!