Cooking and Recipes

Traveling abroad is full of so many new challenges: living somewhere outside of the US for the first time, adapting to the culture, getting a hang of the transportation, and, most importantly, learning how to cook for yourself. For me, living in a dorm the past few years and my home before that, cooking has never really been part of the equation: there are those rare nights at home where I’ll cook dinner for my family, but they are rare. I’ve never really had to shop for groceries alone or meal plan before, so this gave me a unique opportunity to broaden my cooking horizons while dealing with food packaging and shopping in an entirely new language. 

There are a few things of note before getting into the bulk part with recipes. First, every ingredient and every piece of food (minus produce) is in another language. This was nearly impossible at first, but by the end, I could be in and out of the grocery store in 10 minutes max. I promise that you’ll start inadvertently memorizing random words, and you’ll remember the correct sections for the food (because they’re different too!). Second, in Germany, people don’t go grocery shopping once a week and buy all of their food. Instead, everyone goes shopping every few days, which keeps the food fresh. For me, this was great and I actually ended up saving money because I realized which ingredients I don’t really use that often, and I was able to make dinners that popped into my head rather than plan them out because I went to the grocery store 3-4 times a week. Third, every unit of measurement is different there, which is good to be aware of when following recipes. I would either look up German/European recipes, or simply eyeball American ones and have food turn out how it turned out (oftentimes, not exactly correct). Fourth, and finally, it’s going to feel very overwhelming at first: not only do you move there and jump right into things in a foreign place, but also you have to start feeding yourself the first day. I would also recommend having plenty of snacks available because there were definitely days in the first two weeks that I just didn’t want to cook at all because it felt so overwhelming. 

However, by week two, I was a pro at cooking for myself, even if I did only cook three recipes on repeat for the first three (or six) weeks. 

The recipes/ideas below are pretty simple: they’re designed for people that haven’t really cooked at all before and are trying to just get the hang of things first. I also include a bunch of ideas, too, because oftentimes I found myself at a loss of what to cook. I am no Martha Stewart and definitely no Gordon Ramsay (moreso Guy Fieri), but these recipes were lifesavers abroad, so I hope they can help you too!