Finnis-German 8th meeting: cooking makaronilaatikko

Today Chiara and Meike came to my place to cook the pretty traditional Finnish food makaronilaatikko with grated carrot. While cooking we listened to German music from various genres, such as pop, rap and Schlager. One of the most memorable songs was probably this song called “Currywurst” by Herbert Grönemeyer. The girls also told me about big and small German music festivals (the small ones were actually quite big in Finnish standards) and I learned that the big ones are quite expensive in Germany as well.

From music theme we then switched to chocolate, which is always a good topic. Milka is already familiar to me but the girls recommended this other chocolate, Ritter Sport, as well. I learned that the chocolate is in square form (16 pieces) because it’s easier to fit it into your pocket that way. The chocolate also comes in even smaller size (4 pieces), which I find super cute. The slogan for Ritter Sport is “Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut” (=Square. Practical. Good) 😀 The chocolate is made in Waldenbuch and I heard that it sometimes smells like chocolate in the town – I mean, how cool is that!

The food came out quite good, even though there could have been a bit more spices. A funny moment was when I asked Chiara whether she wants some milk to drink with the food and she started laughing. I didn’t even realise that it isn’t common at all to drink milk at meal in Germany :’D After finishing the meal we wrote down the main ingredients in Finnish and German. I learned that  the word “Soja-Granulat” means soybean meal but the word Granulat also goes for eg a nutrient that is used in the artificial grass sports fields. Another interesting word was Kater, which means hangover but translates as male cat. We didn’t have come up with any ideas about the history behind the word :’D

After eating we played some Alias in German. I think the most difficult thing was to not accidentally switch into English. We were basically playing in three languages: German while explaining, English while I didn’t know some words or we were joking around and Finnish while I told the girls how to pronounce the words. It was really fun and I feel like I learned some new useful everyday words. I also got a chance to refresh my memory when it came to words such as Bleistift (pencil) and Korb (basket), which I had totally forgotten. We talked about the interesting observation, that there are many Finnish words that are quite similar to the German ones, like Rakete & raketti (rocket) and Korb & kori. We also noted the compound words and I tried to translate them into English (like lyijy_kynä = lead pen)and Meike and Chiara did the same with some of the German words (like Kinder_sitz = child seat). It was funny to note that quite many of the Finnish words were even longer than the German ones. There were long German words as well, though, like Schreibtischstuhl (=work chair) and Sicherheitsnadel (safety pin).

Unfortunately I didn’t take a photo of the meal. I did, however, take a photo of the delicious Toffifee that Meike brought for dessert. Next time we are planning to take a walk in Pispala because it’s almost a crime that Meike and Chiara haven’t been there yet – since it’s one of the most photogenic places in Tampere.

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