by Louis Purba from Indonesia,

Louis Purba from Indonesia will be the next international volunteer in the Kontaktstelle Evangelische Jugend. She is currently waiting to fly to Germany – and is preparing to try out recipes from German cookbooks.

I love food. But I am not really good at cooking. Especially to cook Asian cuisine because it contains a lot of spices and it takes a lot of time to prepare. Asian love rich flavor that contains bitter, sour, spicy, sweet. While European cuisine focuses either salt or sweet. That is why I want to try to cook European cuisine before my flight to Germany. Because it is so different. And most importantly, European foods favor wheat, while Asian foods tend to use rice frequently. So that, when I arrive in Germany I already get used to it.

European cuisine that I ever try was not very complicated and it tasted good. I have a guidance book called ‘Salat. Die besten Rezepte’. I always looked up to it when I cook. The tastiest food so far is ‘Salat mit Schwarzen Bohnen’. It is Pastasalat, I like pasta so much. I would like to try the original one when I am in Germany. I also like toast. I usually make it for breakfast or brunch. I like avocado toast, purée pumpkin toast with egg, and banana toast with peanut butter. All of them are tasty.

Asian food adds sour, bitter and spicy. I like my food to be spicy, and what I heard from my friend who already visited German, she said that mostly Europeans don’t add spicy to food. They suggested me to bring something like chili powder from Indonesia or buy it on Asian store in German. I also add chili powder to my avocado toast. Although they don’t put it in the recipe’s book. And my friend also said that in Germany most people drink sparkling water, I never heard about sparkling water before. I am so excited to try out this sparkling water.

Carolin said that we go a lot to international food places in Dortmund. I am so excited about that. I am so interested because it allows me to learn about new country and the culture in the other way.