“um den heißen Brei reden”
This is a really common expression in German that’s roughly the equivalent of beating around the bush.
The literal translation is:
“talking around the hot porridge/mush.”
Which doesn’t make all that much sense.
Originally, the phrase was with schleichen (to sneak) instead of reden (to talk) and it was inspired by cats sneaking around a plate with hot porridge, trying to find the coldest spots where they could then lick without getting burned.
And that’s pretty much what it’s about – you have a hot topic and you make circles around it trying to find the “least hot” spot, but you never really dive in.