10. Meeting – Last meeting

We ended our course meetings with a German dessert that is so filling that you can also eat it as a main dish: Kirschenmichel. The recipe was once created to use up leftover dry bread. After soaking it in milk, mixing it with eggs, sugar and cherries and baking it in the oven, the result is a delicious cake-like dish that is served with vanilla sauce. I’ve never made it myself before. So, although I showed Kaili this German dish, I could also learn and practice a bit. The last time I ate Kirschenmichel was when I was a child. That’s why the taste reminds me of my childhood and also of my mother. I wasn’t expecting that. While the buns were soaking in the milk, I explained the word ‘Kirschenmichel’. “Kirsche” means cherry and “Michel” is a male first name, but I don’t know why the dish is called by that name. The word “Michel” makes me think of the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, because the boy in her story “Emil i Lönneberga” is called Michel in German instead of Emil.

But back to our meeting. I’m very happy that Kaili enjoyed it so much. And at the same time, it’s a pity that it was our last meeting. I think we learnt a lot from each other. Of course, there is much more we could talk about, and also what we had in mind to achieve when we set up our preliminary plan. Both learning and teaching takes more time than I thought. I thought I could learn a lot more of the language, for example some everyday sentences. But even the numbers Kaili taught me were difficult, thus it is okay. Our main goal was to have a good time together. And we achieved what we are really interested in: Cooking together and introduce each other in one’s food culture and cuisine. And it was very exciting to learn about the other culture and to see how different German and Chinese culture is. I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to travel to China and visit Kaili.