ON THE AVENUES: Breakfast is better with those gorgeous little herrings.

"A kind word is no substitute for a piece of herring or a bag of oats."
-- Sholom Aleichem

Other people go berserk about social media postings on politics and religion, but the ones that really annoy me go something like this:

Q: Hey guys, what’s the weirdest restaurant experience you ever had in a foreign country?

A: Well, one time we were in a McDonald’s in Beijing, and …

STOP. RIGHT. THERE.

You what?

You went all the way to effing China and ate in a McDonald’s?

Why on earth would you do something like that?

I mean, it’s bad enough to stuff Chick Fil A down your unresponsive pie holes here in clueless L’America, but why waste your time patronizing wretched genero-chains when you’re enjoying the good fortune to be able to travel overseas in the first place?

(gurgling sounds are emitted)

Wait -- what was that?

You’re asking me if I think the Chick Fil A in Beijing serves Peking Duck Bites?

We can only hope, seeing as folks like you apparently need Peking Duck Bites to populate your nauseating “gotta try” Instagram moments, and so if I’m lucky enough to last another two decades before cashing out, you can rest assured I won’t be spending a solitary dime at Chick Fil-WTF, anywhere in the world.

Now if you’ll kindly excuse me while I take great pleasure in BLOCKING you from my life … on social media, at least.

Enjoy your flavorless reeking muck.

---

What do these beige people have against basic human decency, anyway?

It reminded me of my 1985 stay in Salzburg, chatting with a forlorn and utterly terrified Texan who surely has since devolved into a staunch backer of Donald Trump -- or Ted Cruz. The Texan was depressed to the point of a nervous breakdown because he couldn’t find any beer to drink in the lovely mountain city.

Pitying this disoriented Lone Star fool, I tried to talk him off the ledge: cheer up, mate, because it’s your lucky day as a beer lover. You’re in Salzburg, and Germany’s just over those mountains; meanwhile the brilliant Augustiner beer garden lies a few blocks away, they have sausages, and the beer there is just glorious.

He looked at me like I was a mutant space alien.

“But there’s no Miller Lite. It’s my favorite beer. These beers are awful. It just isn’t the same.”

That’s true, friend. It isn’t the same.

IT’S BETTER, YOU ABYSMAL COWARDLY FOOL. WHO IS DUMB ENOUGH TO COME TO EUROPE TO DRINK AMERICAN LIGHT BEER?

Well then, I suppose there’s only one recourse.

Maybe it would be better if tucked tail and fled back to Dallas, renting an efficiency apartment upstairs at Hooters and taking your meals at Arby’s before repairing to Applebee’s for a night cap.

You know, a dullard’s paradise by the gnash-bored Lite.

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Now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest, is it time for breakfast?

You may recall that I prefer fish for breakfast -- but not just any fish. Among the rotating selections from the pantry at dawn’s early light are pungent smoked kippers with crackers; piquant pickled herring on buttered rye bread; and on special occasions, lox with the requisite bagel, cream cheese and just a light sprinkling of capers.

On special occasions, just for garnish, there’ll be a garlic-stuffed olive.

Happily there are repercussions to such culinary preferences. From nowhere, impatient cats find me as I’m walking down alleyways, and they make an eager, impromptu parade.

Even better, some mornings I get in a hurry, forget to brush my teeth, and inadvertently breathe on a prim, proper, crisply suited banker -- and he promptly wilts, as though beaned on the noggin by a stray aesthetic revelation. If it doesn’t render the banker entirely unconscious, I’ll breathe on him a second time.

That usually does it.

Let’s be clear. I like deceased marine life in the morning. Captain Crunch isn’t even close. Pop Tarts need not apply. Eggs will do, generally when pickled.

Breakfast fish is real food for real people.

Obviously, these dining strategies are best complemented by stiff, aromatic black coffee, such as that produced through the saving grace of our home Saeco espresso maker. As for side orders and balance amid the oil, vinegar and brine, there’s properly bitter orange marmalade on toast and the occasional serving of Greek-style yogurt with fruit. Both work quite well.

Indeed, pungency settles the humors. Until the pallid likes of Bob Evans and Cracker Barrel grasp the eternal wisdom of treats like these, it’s hard for me to take them seriously as contenders for my early morning dollars.

May these franchised monuments to white bread, Velveeta and decaf never, ever besmirch the shining shores of Scandinavia, where so many years ago I learned to eat breakfast the right way.

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It was July, 1985 in Oslo, Norway. Thanks to an exchange rate highly favorable to Americans, Scandinavia briefly became almost affordable, and when I stepped off the overnight train from Copenhagen to explore Oslo’s main station in search of a bite to eat, the handy restaurant with its all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet actually was reasonably priced.

(As a side note that for budget travelers, buffets meant two or perhaps even three meals, not just one. A clean freezer bag could be stuffed full of meat and cheese when no one was looking and reserved for duty later in the day.)

While industriously filling my plate (and bag) I saw three ceramic pots positioned on a narrow shelf. Innocently imagining they were filled with jams or jellies, I scooped out a spoonful of … rectangular silvery-gray piquant vinegary fish parts.

Inadvertently, I had been introduced to pickled herring, a delicacy that hitherto had eluded me. Quickly I realized it was time to put up or shut up, because what possible goal would have been served by traveling all the way from Hoosierland to Norway and then being too timid to taste the damn difference between the two?

Right there in Oslo, with every corn-fed Indiana olfactory receptor sounding a red alert -- “BEWARE, Midwesterner: Ocean products not fully processed into paste to make Filet O’Fish sandwiches … do not compute … WARNING!” -- I piled the pickled herring onto a flat, dense and nutty slice of rye bread.

The funky aroma tickled my proboscis. I hadn’t eaten pickled herring before, not even once, but it was love at first chew.

Later that week in Bergen, Norway, I treated myself to a culinary splurge. For three hours at lunchtime, a renowned local eatery ran an all-you-can eat seafood buffet for the equivalent of $15. Bearing in mind that my daily budget for lodging, meals and alcohol was $25, this was a budget-buster.

The fact that it has lingered in my memory three decades later attests to the correctness of the decision to abandon fiscal rectitude.

The buffet served as a Nawbany rube’s introduction to smoked salmon, something quite rare in the rural, corn-fed Indiana of my youth. In 1985, I had no way of knowing the same-but-different confluences between Norwegian smoked salmon and Jewish lox (the latter cultural norms being as uncommon as Vikings in Baptist-laced Hoosierland), or the meticulous strategies for preparing such treats, which are every bit as traditional, proud and locally varied as American barbecue methodology.

I could say only that I liked it, a lot, along with mussels, oysters, flounder and all the rest of the bounty.

The summer of 1985 was an introduction to all things European. I became enamored of the continent, and always will be. Food in general captivated me, especially those items and recipes we didn’t commonly experience at home at the time, like moussaka (from Greece), North African cuisine (in Paris) and even Nutella (rare in Louisville back then).

Specifically, engaging in strange, subversive encounters with un-American fish became a thread running through most subsequent journeys, from pie, mash, eel and liquor (gravy) in London in 2013, to the snack tray at Suzanne’s wedding on the Baltic in 1996, which also included eel, this time smoked, or black scabbard fish with bananas at the island of Madeira last year.

But my single proudest moment of all came when I enjoyed the distinction of being the oddball foreigner who introduced my Danish pals to the grandeur of the Faergekro restaurant at Nyhavn (“new” harbor) in their own city of Copenhagen.

The daily herring buffet was and remains a highlight of western civilization. At least ten varieties of pickled herring (with sour cream, curry and Madeira sauce, among others) are offered, along with dense dark bread, butter, and garnishes like raw egg, onion and caper berry. Whole smoked herrings are carved from the bone and replenished.

Beer is available, as well as Akvavit (Scandinavian schnapps), along with the wonderful northern custom of providing house-made infusions of herbs and spices for flavoring the firewater and washing down the tasty pickled and smoked morsels.

You can spend whole days in a joint like this, and one time in 1989, I did just that, starting a tab at Faergekro for lunch, and finally arriving back at my temporary Danish doorstep in a taxi well past midnight, pea soup fog choking the street as well as the inner recesses of my cranium, fully tempted to join WC Fields in returning to the eatery the next day and asking:

“Was I here last night, and did I spend $300?”

(Insert whatever the words are for “yes, you did” are in Denmark.)

"That's fine. I was afraid I lost it."

Fishies and Akvavit were far better than losing the money, and it may have been a wonderful evening.

---

Recent columns:

August 8: ON THE AVENUES: Unless you open your eyes, “resistance” is an empty gesture.

August 1: ON THE AVENUES: The whys and wherefores can drive a man to drink; our lives just ARE, and that's that.

July 25: ON THE AVENUES: Until philosophers become kings, beer and food work just fine.

July 18: ON THE AVENUES: I'm a citizen of the universe, but I can't take a photo to save my life.

Not really a caption contest as Gahan and Duggins bond over light beers.

Social media has delivered a clear verdict: That Kid for Mayor 2019.

"In a high chair, texting, and throwing back."

And this:

"At least the child has the proper glassware for his water."

The hits keep coming.

"Tastes great!"

"Less filling!"

Or maybe it's better this way:

Beer: no taste

Drinkers: no filling

Topically speaking ...

"I just bought 5 new tasers. You can get 'em cheap online."

But the best comment of all comes to us from Michael Wimmer, whose WE Studio preceded Hull & High Water at 324 E. Main Street.

I guess all I had to do was sell the studio to someone selling lite beer to have Gahan stop by.

Damn. The truth hurts, doesn't it? Thanks, BM, for a gift that will keep giving far into the 2019 campaign season.

Light beer? It’s from right here (Bicentennial edition).

The greatest New Albany story, seldom told, and one worth remembering.

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LIGHT BEER? IT'S FROM RIGHT HERE ... by Roger A. Baylor.

In 1909, the German-language Louisville Anzeiger newspaper praised Augustus Tusch of neighboring New Albany.

“Herr Tusch is a lager brewer of great repute whose cleanliness and quality is of the highest order, with barrels filled and delivered fresh within the astounding radius of ten blocks from his business address.”

It seems that Tusch was about to release a revolutionary new product. Who was this long forgotten New Albanian, and what was his plan to reorder the brewing universe?

Tusch was born in 1861 in Einenwitz, a Bavarian village internationally famous for the pureness of its drinking water. His itinerant father trained him to be a magician, but the young man changed careers in 1884, after a card trick went awry and injured a prelate’s eye. Fleeing town, he became a brewer’s apprentice in Lustigstadt, later eloping with his employer’s youngest daughter, Weitta, and relocating to Northern Germany.

The couple decided to immigrate to America. While working as a waiter in Hamburg to save money for the overseas journey, Tusch became acquainted with the city’s renowned Diät Pils, a low-strength, highly attenuated lager designed specifically for diabetics, consumptives and the chronically ill.

“Those poor, desperate drinkers are told that Diät Pils, which comes at a higher price, has less sugar and can be consumed in small amounts without detriment to their condition,” wrote Tusch, “but they still drink more of it because, they contend, it feels less full in their stomachs. Very interesting, this illusion.”

When the liner Teutonophilia left Hamburg for the United States, the Tusches had little to call their own. Their wooden chest contained earthenware beer mugs, a matrimonial pretzel mold, and – written in code – the secret technique for “triple hopping” that Tusch intended to use at his future brewery.

In 1902, Tusch’s dream finally came true, and a magnificent brewing plant was built in New Albany at the corner of West 8th and Water Streets. He immediately saw that while the older citizens preferred traditional styles, ensuing generations were stirring from ancient ways. Intrigued yet cautious, Tusch began ruminating. There was German brewing, and then there was American marketing. He recalled his father’s magic tricks, and pondered:

“When the neighborhood men, these glassmakers and carpenters and blacksmiths, send their lovely rosy-cheeked children to me for growlers of beer, how might I convince them to pay for two buckets to hang from the handle bars of their bicycles, and not merely one?”

The answer finally came one late summer day, when Tusch accepted an acquaintance’s lunch invitation. Upon arrival, he was shocked – neither at the salad being prepared with vegetables from a patch by the street-side sewage ditch (in German, “Neuealbaneekanal”), nor the flank steak from the little butcher shop opposite Churchill Downs, but because the soup stock was none other than Tusch’s own Aecht Fett Tuscher Doppelbock.

“Scheisse!,” Tusch exclaimed. “My beer is so heavy that it makes barley soup!”

“The ancient monks were not speaking in riddles. Their beer really was liquid bread. Small wonder that my delivery wagons break down just a day after the thousand mile warranty is passed, and the children can convey only one bucket at a time to their toiling fathers. My Fett Tuscher weighs too much!”

Tusch’s conclusion was elegantly simple: “I must make light beer.”

He soon discovered that brewing light beer would require an entirely different technical approach. Previously, all beer had been dark in color, as stained by the inky residue of coal smoke in rusty kettles seldom cleaned. How to make this blackness into pale?

With the help of tanners at the nearby Moser firm, Tusch found that dark beer could be given a harsh lye bath, rendering it a bleached golden hue, and making it lighter in liquid weight by an impressive average of 25% per hundred barrels.

As for the “secret” triple hopping, Tusch discovered with considerable dismay that it actually was the norm in brewing circles worldwide, but anticipating the deceptive utility of the term for the purposes of salesmanship, he chose instead to keep the phrase and slash the hop presence in his new beer to almost nothing. Another 25% of weight duly vanished.

The result, dubbed Tuscher Leicht, clearly predates the modern light beer phenomenon by as many as fifty years. Ingeniously, Tusch had reduced the cost of production by half, and the beer itself, advertised as healthy in moderation, was so watery that drinkers could be counted on to consume even more of it at precisely the same price, without ever really thinking about the higher final toll on their wallets.

On April 1, 1910, the inaugural batch of Tusch’s new light beer emerged from the lagering cellar after ten days, was racked into massive wooden barrels, and loaded onto a brewery delivery wagon, much to the relief of a team of horses accustomed to far heavier beer. Numerous advance orders were waiting to be filled, and the forecast looked bright.

Alas, at this moment of triumph, the story of Augustus Tusch ends in tragedy.

When that very first wagon filled with Tuscher Leicht left the brewery yard, it struck Tusch, who had stepped outside to light his pipe, tripped when his boot caught a snag in the jagged, unrepaired sidewalk (the “Neuealbaneekranksteig”), and fell straight into the path of the unstoppable vehicle.

Tusch, the only man who knew the exact recipe for Tuscher Leicht, died later that day in St. Edward’s hospital, a doomed victim of the unbeerable erring of lightness.

REWIND: Light beer? It’s from right here (2010).

There's a place and a time for light beer, even if you can shampoo only so many house pets. Having richly enjoyed LEO's Fake Issue send-up of NABC earlier this week, it seems appropriate to revisit my Tribune column of April 1, 2010.

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BEER MONEY: Light beer? It’s from right here.

By ROGER BAYLOR Local Columnist

In 1910, the German-language Louisville Anzeiger newspaper praised Augustus Tusch of neighboring New Albany.

“Herr Tusch is a lager brewer of great repute whose cleanliness and quality is of the highest order, with barrels filled and delivered fresh within the astounding radius of ten blocks from his business address.”

It seems that Tusch was about to release a revolutionary new product. Who was this long forgotten New Albanian, and what was his plan to reorder the brewing universe?

Tusch was born in 1861 in Einenwitz, a Bavarian village internationally famous for the pureness of its drinking water. His itinerant father trained him to be a magician, but the young man changed careers in 1884, after a card trick went awry and injured a prelate’s eye. Fleeing town, he became a brewer’s apprentice in Lustigstadt, later eloping with his employer’s youngest daughter, Weitta, and relocating to Northern Germany.

The couple decided to immigrate to America. While working as a waiter in Hamburg to save money for the overseas journey, Tusch became acquainted with the city’s renowned Diät Pils, a low-strength, highly attenuated lager designed specifically for diabetics, consumptives and the chronically ill.

“Those poor, desperate drinkers are told that Diät Pils, which comes at a higher price, has less sugar and can be consumed in small amounts without detriment to their condition,” wrote Tusch, “but they still drink more of it because, they contend, it feels less full in their stomachs. Very interesting, this illusion.”

When the liner Teutonophilia left Hamburg for the United States, the Tusches had little to call their own. Their wooden chest contained earthenware beer mugs, a matrimonial pretzel mold, and – written in code – the secret technique for “triple hopping” that Tusch intended to use at his future brewery.

In 1902, Tusch’s dream finally came true, and a magnificent brewing plant was built in New Albany at the corner of West 8th and Water Streets. He immediately saw that while the older citizens preferred traditional styles, ensuing generations were stirring from ancient ways. Intrigued yet cautious, Tusch began ruminating. There was German brewing, and then there was American marketing. He recalled his father’s magic tricks, and pondered:

“When the neighborhood men, these glassmakers and carpenters and blacksmiths, send their lovely rosy-cheeked children to me for growlers of beer, how might I convince them to pay for two buckets to hang from the handle bars of their bicycles, and not merely one?”

The answer finally came one late summer day, when Tusch accepted an acquaintance’s lunch invitation. Upon arrival, he was shocked – neither at the salad being prepared with vegetables from a patch by the street-side sewage ditch (in German, “Abcoffeykanal”), nor the flank steak from the little butcher shop opposite Churchill Downs, but because the soup stock was none other than Tusch’s own Aecht Fett Tuscher Doppelbock.

“Scheisse!,” Tusch exclaimed. “My beer is so heavy that it makes barley soup!”

“The ancient monks were not speaking in riddles. Their beer really was liquid bread. Small wonder that my delivery wagons break down just a day after the thousand mile warranty is passed, and the children can convey only one bucket at a time to their toiling fathers. My Fett Tuscher weighs too much!”

Tusch’s conclusion was elegantly simple: “I must make light beer.”

He soon discovered that brewing light beer would require an entirely different technical approach. Previously, all beer had been dark in color, as stained by the inky residue of coal smoke in rusty kettles seldom cleaned. How to make this blackness into pale?

With the help of tanners at the nearby Moser firm, Tusch found that dark beer could be given a harsh lye bath, rendering it a bleached golden hue, and making it lighter in liquid weight by an impressive average of 5% per hundred barrels.

As for the “secret” triple hopping, Tusch discovered with considerable dismay that it actually was the norm in brewing circles worldwide, but anticipating the deceptive utility of the term for the purposes of salesmanship, he chose instead to keep the phrase and slash the hop presence in his new beer to almost nothing. Another 5% of weight duly vanished.

The result, dubbed Tuscher Leicht, clearly predates the modern light beer phenomenon by as many as fifty years. Ingeniously, Tusch had reduced the cost of production by half, and the beer itself, advertised as healthy in moderation, was so watery that drinkers could be counted on to consume even more of it at precisely the same price, without ever really thinking about the higher final toll on their wallets.

On April 1, 1910, the inaugural batch of Tusch’s new light beer emerged from the lagering cellar after ten days, was racked into massive wooden barrels, and loaded onto a brewery delivery wagon, much to the relief of a team of horses accustomed to far heavier beer. Numerous advance orders were waiting to be filled, and the forecast looked bright.

Alas, at this moment of triumph, the story of Augustus Tusch ends in tragedy.

When that very first wagon filled with Tuscher Leicht left the brewery yard, it struck Tusch, who had stepped outside to light his pipe, tripped when his boot caught a snag in the jagged, unrepaired sidewalk (the “Pricekranksteig”), and fell straight into the path of the unstoppable vehicle.

Tusch, the only man who knew the exact recipe for Tuscher Leicht, died later that day in St. Edward’s hospital, a doomed victim of the unbeerable erring of lightness.

Today's Tribune column: "Light beer? It’s from right here."

It figures that this would be the place to foist light beer on the planet. Poor planet ... but today, on this most appropriate of holidaze, the only thing I know for sure is what Basil Fawlty taught me:

"Just don't mention Bottles Unlimited!"

BAYLOR: Light beer? It’s from right here

In 1910, the German-language Louisville Anzeiger newspaper praised Augustus Tusch of neighboring New Albany.

“Herr Tusch is a lager brewer of great repute whose cleanliness and quality is of the highest order, with barrels filled and delivered fresh within the astounding radius of ten blocks from his business address.”