Muesli – I grew up on this dish for breakfast that is another Germanism in the English language. My mother changed it up with jam sandwiches for us kids (no peanut butter, mind!). The Swiss term Müesli or German Müsli (pronounced fairly similar as you know it) entered my vocabulary only fairly late. We used to call the dish by its ingredients, “Haferflocken mit …” (pronounce ‘hu-fah-flockn mit, meaning oat flakes with). Why? Because my mother mixed it herself afresh, every time we had it. I didn’t care much for it, not even having a sweet tooth way back then. Needless to say, that though it’s a household staple along with other breakfast cereals at our Lakewood home, I’m not the one who eats it. When I’m traveling, though, I always have some for breakfast to ensure a healthier start into the morning than what other sweet options are offered. I don’t do pancakes, waffles, or Danishes at hotel breakfast buffets.
Interestingly, cornflakes and Muesli were introduced by similar people to similar people around the same time, in the late 1800s respectively in 1900 – by sanitarium directors to their patients. Of course, you are familiar with the name Kellogg; in Switzerland it was a Mr. Bircher-Benner, MD. The Bircher-Müesli’s most important ingredient, though, were not cereals, but apples. (My mother usually added oranges or bananas, and nuts.) This dish conquered restaurants in the German-speaking regions by 1920 and can be found in different variations on pretty much any German hotel breakfast buffet.
I keep thinking my mother looked into Muesli after some neighborhood children had been bragging about eating Kellogg’s cornflakes. Of course, foodie that I am, I nagged my mother to have us try this magical food item newly imported to Germany in the early 1970s. She gave in – and none of us liked it! But the concept was fun. So, instead of buying the then costly processed flakes, my mother created her own oatmeal-based mixes.
The late 1970s also became an era of ecological awakening in Germany. All of a sudden, the Green party formed and made it into parliament. Their alternative lifestyle based on everything natural and made from scratch gained the followers of the concept the nickname “Müslis” or, a pejorative, Müslifresser – “fresser” meaning eater. The German band BAP (singing in the dialect spoken in the city of Cologne) even dedicated a song to a caricature of the cliché, “Müsli Män”:
Apparently, the British use the term muesli belt for residential town areas of nutrition conscious middleclass. And there are parts of Winterthur, Swiss, and Cologne, Germany, that are called muesli quarter or settlement due to their street names. Oh, and did I hear some people call a mishmash also a muesli? There you go!
Meanwhile, German-style muesli mixes have made it to U.S. supermarket shelves, and there are plenty of fresh or dried fruit options to add, as well. Muesli bars go into our rucksacks when we go hiking – an easy snack in between. Globalism has long stopped perceiving such items as exotic. And my guess is that the nickname Müsli for an environment-conscious person has become obsolete long ago. We all simply know better now about environment.
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A variation of the German Müsli …(Photo: Kukujava-Feinkost @https://unsplash.com/)
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… and its American cousin, cornflakes. (Photo: Calum Lewis @https://unsplash.com/)
When I was younger we called people really into nutrition “granolas.” Which I think would be quite similar to muesli. Now, I understand from my kid’s generation, they simply describe them as “crunchy”. Which seems somewhat similar as well, muesli and granola are both crunchy.
How fun, Alyce, and thanks for sharing! Having no kids around, I don’t even know what today’s youth language is like. I like the granolas – mueslis comparison. In fact, that might help me some in my writing, too. 😉 Have a nice evening!