LÜNEBURG, Germany: A German bakery chain has renamed a popular biscuit in a show of solidarity with Greenland, changing its name from ‘Amerikaners’ to ‘Greenlanders’ .
The ‘Amerikaner’ is similar to the black-and-white cookies found in the United States: a disc-shaped, slightly convex cake base topped with frosting.
Amerikaners are traditionally sold in spring.
This year, however, customers at the Lüneburg-based bakery chain, Harms, asking for the cookie will be served a ‘Greenlander’ instead.
It reflects widespread European opposition to the ambitions of United States President, Donald Trump, to acquire the Arctic territory from Denmark.
“We see this as great publicity for the trade and wanted to seize the opportunity,” Jannik Harms, managing director of the bakery chain, told dpa.
“My grandmother always said that a bakery is a place of life,” said Harms, who runs the business in its fifth generation with his wife, Lisa. “And politics play a big role in life.”
‘Make cake not war’ reads a sign advertising the cookies outside the bakery in the northern city of Lüneburg, to the south-east of Hamburg.
Bakery regulars love the stunt, with local, Henning Willner, describing it as “original” over a piece of cake.
“These are issues that concern us,” he said, adding that the campaign contributes to solidarity with Denmark and Europe.
It is not entirely clear how the ‘Amerikaner’ got its original name.
One theory attributes it to the baking powder component, ammonium hydrogen carbonate, also called Ami in German – the same shorthand used to describe US Americans.
Others say that “the round shape is modelled on a soldier’s helmet”, according to Harms, who has vowed to keep the new name until Trump leaves Greenland alone.
Trump’s politics have inspired similar acts of resistance across Europe and Germany, with a café in Berlin’s Neukölln neighbourhood no longer serving Americanos, but Mexicanos instead. – BERNAMA-DPA
