Between America and Germany there are unusual similarities in both customs and inventions, and culinary preferences are not worth talking about. Everyone knows the Germans' addiction to beer and fried sausages, but even in the USA in the state of Washington there is the village of Leavenworth - an exact copy of the Bavarian villages where German emigrants live.

Today, on the pages of Forum-Grad, our topic of discussion will be unusual things.

"Chicken steak"

This dish based on battered chicken fillet is associated with cuisine from the state of Texas, USA, and its English name comes from the similarity in cooking style of chicken steak and fried chicken. The exact origin of this recipe is unknown, but the inhabitants of Lames prove that it is their city that is the birthplace of this dish and even hold an annual holiday in his honor. Back in 1838, the American magazine Virginia Housewife published Mary Randolph's instructions for making veal cutlets, which cooks recognize as one of the earliest recipes similar to the method of preparing a controversial dish. However, the term "chicken steak" appeared only in the early 30s of the last century.

Ring Binder

We all had to use a binder folder and a stationery hole punch many times, but where they came from, probably only specialists and connoisseurs from the club “What? Where? When?". Today we will try to enlighten everyone who wants to understand this issue. The German merchant, inventor and graphic artist Friedrich founded the Soennecken company and invented a lot of stationery - from a simple school pen to a fountain pen. It was he who in 1886 began to design a folder for documents. On November 14 of the same year, he invented the well-known hole punch.

Another, no less famous of his compatriot, Louis Leitz (Louis Leitz) in 1892 produces his first hole punch with a distance between folds of eight centimeters. And four years later, he releases a "folder-registrar with an arched mechanism." The stationery company LEITZ, founded by him, has been synonymous with excellent quality for European consumers of office supplies for over a hundred years.

Nutcracker, Story and Figuring

The German writer Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a composer and also an artist of the romantic direction. During his 46 years of life, he created many works, but the most famous is the fairy tale "The Nutcracker and the Rat King", reprinted many times both abroad and in Russia. Based on this fairy tale, a cartoon was made by the famous American studio "Walt Disney", as well as the domestic "SOYUZMULTFILM". But the most significant and spectacular embodiment of this beautiful story was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker and its production at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

The premiere took place in 1892. An interesting fact is that the basis for the libretto created by Marius Pitepa was the transcription of this masterpiece by the famous French writer Alexandre Dumas. And now it is the brightest and most amazing production.

In January 2011, a new musical version of this sad, but in many ways instructive tale was released. This project is considered international - Great Britain and Hungary act as the countries of release, and the director and director - Russian Andrei Konchalovsky - for 40 years he has nurtured the plot of the film. This is a modern musical, and all the songs in it are in the Russian version, performed by Alla Pugacheva and Philip Kirkorov.

fabulous dessert

These are confectionery products made from gingerbread dough in the form of a house. All parts are connected using ordinary toothpicks, and the joints are filled with sugar or chocolate icing. The walls are sometimes decorated with all sorts of decorative elements. Experienced chefs make such complex compositions as a model of the London Big Ben or the American Empire State Building in New York, they make ancient castles or mansions.

The Brothers Grimm wrote "Hansel and Gretel", which features a house of bread and sweets, a cannibal witch and brother and sister. Charles Perrault also wrote a fairy tale with a similar plot, and when German townsfolk first recognized it around Christmas, many housewives began to prepare original sweets for their children. Soon, the country even began to hold a competition for the best house, and the first culinary masterpieces began to appear in pastry shops.

The Russians also have their own "gingerbread house", but there Masha and Vanya are saved from a bear, and kind forest dwellers help them in this difficult task.

advent calendar

"Adventus" - the arrival, this is the waiting time preceding the Nativity of Christ, during which believers fast and prepare for the holiday. This tradition came from German Lutherans quite recently - at the beginning of the 19th century. And the first written mention of this four-week period of preparation dates back to the year 524 of the new era. The Advent calendar also appeared not so long ago, it was invented for her son by the German Frau Lang to make the expectation of the holiday more interesting and varied for him. Its most familiar form is a box with opening drawers, according to the number of days of waiting, where you can put multi-colored chocolates, sweets can be alternated with a list of good deeds. In general, there is no limit to fantasy.

Residents of the Scandinavian countries make the same calendar, but only in the form of a pig, without which the Christmas table in those parts is simply unthinkable. Matches are stuck into a large potato according to the number of days of Advent, legs are made of sticks, a small tail is made of shavings and a muzzle is made of cardboard with a pink patch. For primary classes in Sunday schools in some European countries, they make a Christmas staircase, where the Star of Bethlehem and the baby Christ are placed on the topmost step, and a basket or a manger with hay is placed at the bottom. This original composition gives the kids a clear sense of the approach of the long-awaited holiday.

Christmas tree

A smartly decorated spruce is the main symbol of the upcoming New Year and the Nativity of Christ in many countries of the world. This custom arose even among the ancient Germanic peoples, when before the onset of these holidays, a specially selected coniferous tree was decorated in the forest with candles and colored rags, and then rituals were performed nearby. Worship of this type was developed among many peoples. In Greece, the cypress was considered the main sacred tree, and in Rome, the dogwood. By December 31, Georgians were preparing hornbeam logs and chichilaki (a planed walnut branch) for the hearth. In Svaneti, a small birch was installed in the house.

Until now, there are disputes all over the world, which country can claim the championship in establishing the Christmas tree. There is a brief mention that before 1510 there was such a ceremony in the city of Riga, but at the end the tree was burned, which means that the festival united Christian and pagan elements. Martin Luther, a Christian theologian and translator of the Bible into German, installed a decorated tree in his home on Christmas Eve in the early 16th century (the exact date is not known). This spruce is proposed to be considered the first Christian tree on the planet.

The issue of “the first Christmas tree in Europe” is of great tourist and, therefore, financial importance for the country and can sometimes lead to serious disagreements.

Easter Bunny

A hare (rabbit) is a symbol of Easter, similar to Easter cakes in Europe and bell ringing in Russia. According to German tradition, he left a nest with colorful eggs as a gift to children. At first, different regions had their own beliefs. So, in Hesse, a fox brought eggs, in Saxony - a rooster, in Alsace - a stork, and in Bavaria - a cuckoo. But gradually the big-eared crowded out all the "competitors" and became the main figure in all of Germany.

This tradition was brought to the United States of America by immigrants from Germany at the beginning of the 18th century, and it became widespread throughout the territory after the end of the American Civil War. According to the Center for Children's Literature and Culture at the University of Florida, the origin of this tradition belongs to the ancient Germanic epics.

The Teutonic deity Eostra (Ostara) was the goddess of spring and fertility, and her symbol was the rabbit, an animal of great fertility. The legend of the Easter Bunny laying colorful eggs and hiding them in the garden was first documented in the 16th century. The Oster Hase holiday was considered one of the "greatest joys of childhood", it was expected in the same way as gifts for Christmas.

Pysanky hunting

Egg painting began already in the 4th century, and the traditional color in the West is red, symbolizing the blood of Christ, in addition, it is associated with life, victory and joy. In Eastern Europe, gold was more common as a sign of great value.

The big Easter egg hunt is a traditional game that has now infected the whole world. According to some sources, the tradition of hiding them originated in southern Germany, and the search for them is considered an ancient tradition in the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

The essence of this custom is that on the eve of this holiday, adults hide painted real or plastic eggs with surprises inside in the house or in the backyard, and the next day the hunt for them begins. Whoever collects the most children will receive the main prize. True, there are no losers in this game - everyone receives gifts so as not to overshadow the holiday.

A charity event called "The Big Egg Hunt" has been held in London for several years in a row. There are huge painted eggs with a special code on the surface all over the city, and participants must find them and enter them on a special site to enter the drawing of a diamond jewelry in the form of the main symbol of Easter worth £100,000.

"Gummi Bears" - rubber bear

"Gummi Bears" - a kind of candy made in the form of silhouettes of these animals. The taste is very similar to marmalade, but they are chewed for a long time, like chewing gum, which is why their name is translated as "rubber". Many Americans think that this is purely their product, but in fact, the German confectioner Hans Riegel invented these sweets in 1922. Nowadays, such sweets are produced by many manufacturers around the world. But the palm and the patent for the manufacture of precisely small bears belong to the Haribo company, where the famous culinary specialist began.

These sweets have become so popular all over the world that they are currently produced in the form of snakes, frogs, sharks, cherries, penguins, crayfish, hippos, octopuses, oranges, peaches and apples. The huge success of these candies inspired the Walt Disney Company to create the animated series The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, and now children around the world can follow their adventures and enjoy the variety of tastes of the candies of the same name.

"Accommodation for the week"

Currently, prefabricated houses have gained incredible popularity all over the world. They can be installed within a week. In addition to this advantage, they are much cheaper than others and can be installed on lightweight foundations, since its weight is relatively small. These structures are built without the use of construction equipment, which has a significant advantage - the entire assembly is carried out using an ordinary power tool. In addition, finishing materials are significantly saved, since prefabricated panels do not have evenness defects. Inside they are insulating material and a new generation of insulation, so that the warmth in such a house is already guaranteed in any weather.

In Stockholm, IKEA is presently presenting a portable housing project for refugees. The whole structure is assembled in a few hours and can accommodate five people. Solar panels are located on the roofs, and the service life of such a house is about 3 years. The first 50 samples will be used in Syria and Ethiopia, and if approved, they will be mass-produced. Now such houses cost 8,000 dollars, but if they are mass-produced, the price will drop to 1,000. Agree that for such an amount to buy your house is just some kind of holiday!

March of Mendelssohn

In 1843, the premiere of the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" based on the play of the famous William Shakespeare took place in Potsdam. The music for it was written by the 34-year-old composer Jacob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. And it was on this day that the public first heard the "Wedding March", which is known to everyone except avid bachelors. For the first time, in the quality already known to us, this work was performed during the wedding of Dorothy Carew and Tom Daniel in the church of St. Peter in Tiverton (Great Britain) June 2, 1858. But today's popularity all over the world came after the performance in the same year at the wedding of the Prussian king Frederick William IV and the English princess Victoria Adelgeida. This melody brought unheard-of fame to the author and immortalized his name - today, almost no marriage is complete without Mendelssohn's solemn march.

Walt Disney film studio logo

Neuschwanstein Castle is the romantic home of the Bavarian King Ludwig II near the town of Füssen, and in German it sounds like "New Swan Stone". This is one of the most popular places in the south of Germany for tourists from all over the world. It was his slender lines, majestic walls and defensive towers that became the logo of the world-famous American film studio "Walt Disney" from Hollywood. The appearance of this giant was used in the animated film "Sleeping Beauty" and became the prototype for the construction of the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland Paris.

Everything for a picnic

Almost all the components of a modern picnic came to us not from America, as many people think, but from Germany. Let's start with sausages. Back in the 13th century, they already knew the recipe for this popular dish, and at present there are about 1,500 of its varieties. Almost half of the meat consumed in the territory of modern Germany comes from the production of this national delicacy, especially with ketchup and curry powder. By the way, Herta Heuver, the owner of a small eatery in the West Berlin district of Charlottenburg, is considered the inventor of this sauce. She first started serving this dish in 1949 with tomato paste instead of expensive American ketchup, and 10 years later she mixed it with curry powder and patented an invented sauce called "Chilliup".

The American company Kraft offered to buy the patent for excellent money several times, but Frau Heuwer refused and destroyed all records of this unique recipe.

By the way, the famous Heinz ketchup and Hellman mayonnaise were also invented by immigrants from Germany.

Of course, every housewife will take a potato salad for a picnic, which is ideal for such an occasion. This is a popular dish of European cuisine, mainly German, Austrian and Czech. It includes boiled potatoes, mostly not boiled soft, with the addition of onions, fried bacon, pickled cucumbers. Mayonnaise or vinegar mixed with vegetable oil, and sometimes yogurt, are used as dressings.

Passion around the incandescent lamp.

The ancient Egyptians tried to invent a light bulb, then the inhabitants of the Mediterranean, including the famous Leonardo da Vinci, but at that time the material suitable for incandescent filaments had not yet been discovered. Heinrich Göbel was a German watchmaker who immigrated to the United States in 1848. In New York, he opens his watchmaking workshop, part of which he turns into a lamp development laboratory. For the filament, he uses charred bamboo fiber. In 1854, the inventor for the first time managed to bring it to a glow, after placing it in a perfume bottle.

At that time, Goebel's idea did not find proper application, since there were still no important prerequisites and high-quality equipment for industrial production and widespread use. At the age of 75 in 1893, Heinrich was recognized as the inventor of the first usable carbon filament lamp, but he did not have time to patent his invention due to his imminent death.

And Edison only improved his invention, so his paper of the discoverer was invalidated until the expiration of the protection rights.

The first experiments of the permanent

Women at all times dreamed of having curly and long hair, and no matter what tricks they resorted to - they wore special wigs during the reign of kings, crinolines and carriages, curled them with the help of "grandmother's advice". The most acceptable way for everyone was perm, or permanent. German hairdresser Charles Nessler had been working on the idea since 1896, and after ten years of hard work, he introduced permanent rods. Electricity was used to heat them, and a mixture of cow urine and water was used to fix the perm. What kind of sacrifices did the ladies go to look beautiful.

Having studied the above, we come to the conclusion that many things that the Americans previously attributed to themselves were actually invented in Germany. But this is just not surprising. If you look up the pedigree of many American celebrities, then they are all mostly Europeans, and many famous Hollywood legends are generally former Odessans. The main thing is not who invented something first, but that we have learned a lot of new, interesting and useful things today.