Oh superlative Sauerkraut. When we first moved to Berlin my attitude to sauerkraut, the stinky, fermented cabbage, was disparaging in the extreme. The level of cabbage-worship displayed in this country gave me excellent ammunition for illogical, verbal assaults on the entire nation, usually fired off during a non-cabbage-related argument with my German husband.

Then, one day, sauerkraut juice sneaked into my apartment – definitely in disguise, otherwise it would have been refused entry. I tried it, gagged, tried it again, and, as the bottom fell out of my world in one great burst of intestinal enthusiasm, I felt purged, smug and suddenly skinny. Drinking sauerkraut juice is not unlike trying to get mild, non-fatal dysentery on a tropical holiday – a little stomach rumble, a little inconvenience, then sit back and wait for people to notice your newly emerged collarbones.

After some online investigation I’ve learned that sauerkraut juice is a wonder food. It not only cleanses your colon and zaps free radicals, it also makes you live forever, improves your German grammar and recalibrates your moral fibre. I am hooked. These days, friends from abroad must sit through my sermons on sauerkraut, their sceptical silence only broken by their stuttering refusal to try my fearfully wonderful juice.