Dual cultures

"We Saarlanders like to eat," says Sabine Yoendel as she whips her knife around a fresh fish, filleting it.

Food is celebrated in Saarland like nowhere else in Germany. Its proximity to France and French restaurants clearly has an effect: mussels, or moules, crevettes (prawns,) the rich seafood-dipping sauce called rouille, and the famed sparkling wine Cremant d'Alsace are all found on menus here.

"Merci, Maman"

Yoendel's daughter, Frieda, attended a bilingual French-German kindergarten, followed by the bilingual grade school. The nine-year-old fishes carottes – not German Moehren - out of her lunch and says a sweet "Merci, Maman" to her mother.

But not everyone in the Saarland learns French.

"It doesn't go without saying that everyone is bilingual," Yoendel clarifies. "I used to envy my friends who went to the French-German Gymnasium in Saarbruecken. They spoke nearly fluent French and when we went on vacation together on the Atlantic coast they could flirt with the cute French boys. That's when I swore that my own kids would grow up bilingual.

Some regional media are still apt to depict French people as classic beret-wearing, baguette-toting, red wine-tippling caricatures, but Yoendel finds this "ridiculous."

History tied to France

The Saarland's relatioship with France and French culture is something she finds important, and something she takes pride in, she explains. After all, its close to proximity to the French region of Lorraine makes it unique in Germany.

Saarland was a French protectorate from the end of World War II until 1949. Afterward, it was an autonomous region, until it joined West Germany in 1957.

"That's why a lot of Saarlanders will tell you they don't really feel German, nor do they feel French. Something in between - Saarlandish, I guess," Yoendel says.

Many people return back home

Many Saarlanders say they would have a hard time leaving their region and living somewhere else. Those who do leave - for a job, or to study - often find their way back.

"That's just how it is," says Yoendel, who drinks her morning café au lait out of a bowl, in the true French style (with a croissant to dip into it, of course).

"The Saarland has the French lifestyle - a certain savoir-vivre," she says, and she, too, would be loath to give it up.