In Einstein's native Württemberg, the day is structured around a hot meal at noon (Mittagessen), a late-afternoon snack of bread and cheese (Vesper or Brotzeit), and the Sunday ritual of coffee and cake (Kaffee und Kuchen). Evenings often consist of a light Abendbrot: bread, butter, cheese. This is a thrifty, nourishing middle-class cuisine where eggs, flour, lentils and coffee take center stage.

Einstein was a relentless coffee drinker, pipe in one hand and cup in the other. Coffee steams on the physicist's desk as on the Swabian table: it is the red thread between laboratory and kitchen, the bitterness that awakens the mind before the morning equation.