Ben Miller

An essay about the Berlin Linke’s plan to open state-sponsored canteens.

Deftig is a difficult word to translate. It means stick-to-your-ribs, hearty, powerful. The word is used so often in Berlin canteens that my buddy Alex Cocotas and I have turned it into a meme for more than just food, using it to describe (thick, classic) books, (lengthy, noisy) parties, and in one case, a group chat. At its worst, deftige canteen food evokes school lunches made by a deranged, Teutonic Ms. Frizzle. The canteen at my university memorably served both Senfeier (hard-boiled eggs in a mustard cream) and cauliflower patties with banana-curry sauce (under the moniker “world cuisine,” despite resembling no food that any people have ever consumed anywhere). But at its considerable best, canteen food evinces what Gabriel Rosenberg and Jan Dutkiewicz call “democratic hedonism” in their new book about industrial food and how to make it better: a way of thinking about food and politics that values pleasure in eating, especially social pleasure, and seeks to make that pleasure affordable and enjoyable. 

The essay was published with an adapted recipe for canteen food.

This is food designed to taste good and stick to your ribs, not photograph well. It’s mostly brown and gray, with just a hint of purple. It somehow tastes brown and purple too: but in the best possible, most elementally satisfying way.