The most popular vegetable among Germans is the tomato. At least that is what the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture wants to have established. According to his statistics, last year they ate an average of 28.2 kilos of tomatoes per person – that’s about a shopping cart full. And because not everyone likes tomatoes, some just ate more of them. The carrot then follows in second place, some way behind. And it doesn’t matter whether you call it a carrot or a yellow beet: on average, we didn’t put more than 11.4 kilos on our plates. The onions might also be worth mentioning, with 9.2 kilos the third most popular vegetable in this country. But savoy cabbage, beans, kale – completely overestimated and therefore far behind in the ranking. Let alone something as interesting as chard or black radish, they don’t even appear in the statistics.
It is very similar with fruit. Apples have been the undisputed leader of the most popular varieties for years. The average German weighs 22 kilos a year. He manages twelve kilos of bananas, five of grapes. Everything else is not worth mentioning. Even pears are apparently just as unpopular as elderberries.
This may come as a surprise given the abundance of vegetables and the variety of fruit on offer in supermarkets. Even discounters are piling up pak choi, sweet potatoes and pomegranates these days, and parsnips aren’t just found in baby jars anymore. But the practical thing is when you’re unsuspectingly standing in front of the shelves with all sorts of greens and exotic fruits: you don’t even have to know what they’re all called. Even if nothing is labeled, you can still rely on the checkout staff. So just get in the wagon with the strange root vegetables, with the funny tubers and the prickly fruits. Who wants to eat apples and tomatoes all the time?
But probably not everyone at the checkout has already successfully completed their several-week internship in the vegetable department. Somewhat irritated, an employee in Unterhaching held up a type of vegetable to the colleague next door that she had apparently never seen before. “Pepperoni, red,” the other knew immediately. Hardly found in the list on the second page and scanned, the next riddle rolled along on the tape. “Fennel. Side three,” the experienced cashier called over. But it’s good that the new girl had asked. She could have just typed apple or tomato. Who knows how much fennel is in the onion statistics and whether bananas aren’t actually carrots. Are the orange pickles actually on sale this week?