I’m sure you’re all familiar with the story of Little Red Riding Hood, right? There’s a young girl, and she wears a red cape with a red hood. She carries a basket of goodies and sets off through the forest to go see her grandmother. Along the way, she runs into a wolf who wants to eat her. Then mayhem ensues until we get to the part with the happy ending. Well, a happy ending for all but the wolf. Remember, as they say in German at the end of the fairytales, if they haven’t died, then they still live, and that’s the happy ending.

But I digress.

What I want to talk about today is the fact that  I think of this story every time I go produce shopping in Tübingen. Permit me to explain.

Back in Bolzano, I used a little wheeled cart for my grocery shopping. For my open-air market shopping,  I just carried a bag slung over my shoulder. Since I did my fruit and vegetable shopping in the open-air market every morning in Bolzano, I didn’t need to buy too much at one time, so it was easy to carry it in my little shoulder shopping bag. I didn’t need a bigger shopping cart typically for the outdoor market shopping, and people didn’t typically carry any other kinds of baskets there to the markets.

But in Tübingen, the fruit and vegetable market isn’t there every day. So, I have a different shopping pattern:  I will buy several days worth of fruit and vegetables each time I go to the market. You might think that it  would therefore make sense to take my wheeled cart to the fruit and vegetable market, since  3 days worth of fruit and vegetables can be pretty heavy, as it turns out.

However, peer pressure being what it is, and wanting to fit in with my surroundings, I do what the locals do. I use a little basket that I can carry by hand or slung over my arm. The one I have is the most popular style of canvas basket that I see people here use for this kind of shopping, be they young or old. It’s made by the Reisenthel company in Germay, although I will confess I have a cheaper knockoff copy (market baskets don’t come cheap!). Click here to see what one of these baskets looks like on the Reisenthel website.

Even though it’s made of canvas, not wicker, it still strikes me that this style of basket is a modern version of the one Little Red Riding Hood is always pictured with on her trip through the woods.

Now, last month, when we learned the story of Little Red Riding Hood in my German class last month, we learned that in German,  her name, Rotkäppchen, means “Little Red Cap.” Since I wear a red cap — er, hat — when I do my market shopping, I figure I must effectively be an urban Red Riding Hood. While the rest of the story doesn’t apply  — there are no woods, no grandma I’m visiting, and, crucially, no wolf I’m encountering along the way — the basket alone would qualify me to play this part. And then, of course, there’s the color of my hat.

And I am, of course, not terribly tall. 😉

I know, I know, you think that’s just me exaggerating for effect, right? But a couple of weeks back, while I stood in line at the market, the vendor asked the assembled crowd (orderly lines do not exist at this market), “Who’s next?” And the woman next to me answered, “She is, Rotkäppchen. ” And then she gestured to me, as I stood there in my red hat.

See, apparently even market goers here recognize that I really am an Urban Red Riding Hood. 😉