On Wed, 11 Sep 2013, Tom P wrote:

which reminds me of what happened to me some years back. I leave the
house one morning, walk over to the car in the driveway and this
police car...

not about airports, but still travel ... did I never tell this story ?

In the '80s I used to travel a lot Italy to Germany and vv. using night
trains (sleepers, I usually booked a T3 but was almost always alone).
Normally there were no border checks, but once in or around Basel I was
waken up by a couple of German police (and older and a younger one) who
were doing luggage inspection.

I had in my luggage a chestnut cake my mother did (you boil chestnuts,
pass them, mix with a bit of butter, cocoa or chocolate and a bit of
cognac or rhum) ... in the form of a ball of a light brown paste wrapped
in aluminium foil :-)

They wanted to know (very politely) what is was, and I said it was a
Kastanienkuche. The older one wanted to know how was it named (!) in
Italian. I said it had no specific names. He insisted on knowing a
"generic" name, so I said "dolce di castagne". Then, addressing the
younger colleague, he smiled and said "it is as I told you". Then they
wished me good night and left.