Fiction
(Fiction) Delikatessen
100-word flash fiction
When they shut down the delicatessen, everything went with it. No rye bread in this town. Cold cuts all just shrink-wrapped ham. I’d have to learn to make knödel by hand if I wanted them, now.
I missed my grandmother’s funeral while away on business. The German roots of this village all greyed and falling out. Nothing but Canadian-born kids with kindergarten language skills. Milche, bitte. Danke. For us the Black Forest is just a cake.
And God, how I hated marzipan when I was little. But if I could go back, I’d eat every bit my grandmother ever offered.
Memoir, thinly disguised in a veneer of flash fiction. It’s a strange thing to watch a generation disappear. But I make spätzle as close to the way she made it as I can manage. And the flavour of marzipan is a memory of her house.
