I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got my first taste of Schleswig-Holstein before even leaving the car park at Dover. There I was, smug as you like, having remembered passports, chargers, and even the travel pillow I never use. What I had not remembered, in a moment of spectacular self-delusion, was to check which side of the car the fuel cap was on. Cue ten minutes of increasingly frantic fumbling at a German petrol station somewhere past Hamburg, me crawling round the hire car like a confused beetle while a queue of very patient locals formed behind me. A chap in a flat cap eventually tapped my window and pointed. I thanked him in what I believed was German but may have been accidentally Welsh. We shall never know.

By the time I reached Suessauer Strand on the Ostsee coast, I was ravenous, embarrassed, and deeply committed to never speaking again. That resolve lasted approximately four minutes, which was how long it took me to open the door of the holiday home and immediately start talking to myself about the kitchen. It was one of those proper German kitchens, all gleaming efficiency and mysterious drawers that slide out with satisfying precision. I opened every single one, naturally, like a child on Christmas morning. The previous guests had left behind a lone jar of something called "Rugenscher Brotaufstrich" which Google later informed me was fish paste. I decided this was an omen, though for what I could not say.

The first evening demanded a proper exploration of local eating, and I had done precisely no research beyond noting that the Baltic Sea was nearby and therefore fish would feature heavily. I drove the five minutes to Scharbeutz, which sits along the promenade like a relaxed seaside cousin who has seen it all before. The waterfront restaurants were doing brisk trade in smoked fish, and I found myself at a terrace table ordering something the menu described only as "Fischbrotchen, hausgemacht." What arrived was a bread roll the size of my fist, stuffed with smoked mackerel, onions sharp enough to wake the dead, and a remoulade that I would happily have eaten with a spoon from the jar. I ate two, which seemed reasonable given my petrol station trauma, then waddled back to the car wondering if I had technically just consumed my body weight in herring.

The following morning I attempted to cook breakfast in my magnificent German kitchen, having purchased eggs and some alarmingly dark bread from a farm shop near Sierksdorf. The bread, I discovered, was the kind that demands respect and serious chewing. My toaster, a British veteran of many years, would have surrendered immediately. The kitchen's four-slice number handled it with Teutonic efficiency. I felt briefly competent, which was dangerous. Overconfidence led me to attempt a traditional "Labskaus" later that week, having seen it described on a pub menu in Haffkrug. The landlord, a splendid fellow with eyebrows like hedgerows, explained it was sailor's food: corned beef, potatoes, beetroot, mashed to a alarming pink and topped with pickled herring and a fried egg. "You do not make this at home," he said, with the certainty of a man who had witnessed many culinary disasters. I made it at home. He was correct. The resulting sludge sat in my stomach like a warning, and I ate takeaway pizza from a place in Scharbeutz while staring at the remains and contemplating my hubris.

The local markets became my salvation and my obsession. The weekly market in Timmendorfer Strand, another short hop along the coast, offered smoked eel that the vendor would warm slightly and serve with fresh bread and horseradish that cleared my sinuses to the Baltic. I learned to arrive early for the best fish, joining a queue of elderly locals who clearly had opinions about my technique. One woman, wrapped in a sensible coat despite the sunshine, watched me prod a piece of salmon with suspicious gentleness. "You must be firm," she instructed, in excellent English, then demonstrated by slapping a trout with decisive authority. I bought the trout. It was magnificent, pan-fried that evening with butter and dill from a pot I had purchased specifically for this purpose and would never use again.

The pubs along this stretch of coast have a particular character, neither fully German nor quite anything else, shaped by generations of sailors and holidaymakers. In Scharbeutz I found one with a terrace overlooking the water, serving "Flensburger Pilsener" in bottles with a ceramic top that makes a satisfying pop when opened. I collected three of these tops before realising they were not, in fact, a currency. The barmaid found this hilarious and brought me a plate of pickled herring "for the collector." We became friends of a sort, though I suspect she was amused by my persistent butchery of her language. I learned to order "noch ein Bier, bitte" with reasonable confidence, and to accept that my pronunciation of "Dankeschon" would always sound faintly sarcastic.

My final evening demanded a return to competence. I purchased fresh cod from the morning market, determined to do it justice. The kitchen, by now an old friend, provided the tools. I made a simple preparation with butter, lemon, and those dill remnants, served with boiled potatoes and a cucumber salad dressed in cream and vinegar. It was not revolutionary. It was correct. I sat on the small terrace with my plate and a glass of Riesling from the supermarket in Sierksdorf, watching the light fade over fields that stretched toward the sea. The petrol station humiliation felt distant, the Labskaus disaster almost fond. I had come to this corner of Schleswig-Holstein expecting the Baltic and found instead something smaller and better: the particular pleasure of feeding yourself in a place where food is taken seriously but not solemnly, where a good fish sandwich is an achievement worth celebrating, and where even your failures become stories for the pub.

The herring lady would have approved, I think, though she would doubtless have found the plating insufficiently firm.