Queens: death of a bratwurst

Just a brief follow-up on the post dealing with the curse of the bratwurst/bratswurst, the frankfurt/frankfurter and the hamburger/hamburguesa/hembluguesa: the NYT today notes the increasing assimilation into the mainstream of Ridgewood’s German community. Says Elfriede Parthe, “Life is a journey, and you know what, nothing ever stays the same.” (In a separate contribution to this discussion, Dicy Guest asks if Philip Larkin was influenced by Heidegger.)

Getting even more vague now, there’s a lovely vignette of Argentine Patagonia by Marcel Haenen in this morning’s NRC Handelsblad. It includes a short conversation with farmer Wendt von Thüngen, whose father fled Germany in 1944 to escape military service, and who is now married to the granddaughter of two French Basque immigrants from St Jean-de-Luz, near Hendaye, Felix Arbeletche and María Olazábal. In 1920, when Argentina was still one of the richest countries in the world, this formidable couple ordered all their furniture for their new ranch from Normandy. The local museum contains large bits of dinosaurs and snailshells 1.7m in diameter. Unlike his neighbours, Wendt doesn’t farm sheep: 100 hectares isn’t enough.

Trevor @ 25 October 2003 11:21 AM

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