Kitchen Talk

Leoni: Today I’m sitting here with Dorothea Rüland. This is a very special episode of our podcast today, because we actually got to know each other here in the kitchen, and Dorothea is not a fellow, but the Secretary-General of HIAS in her last days in this role.

You’ve been the HIAS Secretary-General since 2021 and before that, you were Secretary-General of the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service. You’ve lived in England, Thailand, Indonesia, Germany, you were born in Berlin, if I read that right, and you don’t live in Hamburg at all, but officially you live in the Rhineland, right? 

Dorothea Rüland: Yes, let’s put it this way, I commute, I have an apartment here, but my family actually lives in Bonn, because the DAAD is also in Bonn.

So, first of all, I’d like to officially welcome you again and I’m glad that you want to talk to me today about my favorite topic or maybe about something that connects us both, because I know it’s a topic that you also like to talk about. My topic is food as cultural identity. 

And I found a really nice line from the Federal Center for Nutrition that says, “Food provides an opportunity to spend time together, food culture is an important part of our identity and sense of home and belonging to a group, and as the first language with which young children come to know the world.” 

I had to bring this up very briefly, because you’ve seen an incredible amount of the world, and you’ve probably taken a lot of the culture and food culture from your respective places of residence with you. You can think about which culture’s food you liked the most, but I would like to ask you one last question about HIAS before we get to the food. What do you find special about HIAS, the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study, compared to other Institutes for Advanced Study that you have come across? 

Well, I think what all IASs have in common is that they offer freedom, freedom to think, to write, to communicate, that’s what they all have in common. But beyond that, of course, each institute also has its own profile, and yes, when I think of HIAS, of course freedom plays a very big role, but what we also try to do is building networks. For several reasons:

First of all, because I am firmly convinced that the big scientific challenges that we face can only really be solved in international networks. And that is also part of the mission of HIAS, to help make Hamburg a little more international and to make Hamburg more visible internationally. And of course, networks can be very helpful here. 

They have the great advantage that they also guarantee a certain sustainability. Yes, networking is also a big topic for me, but I’ll leave that aside for a moment. 

Right, before we go any further, I asked what we are going to eat together today, because my podcast guests are always allowed to choose what we eat. We only have a couple of dips today, salty and sweet. 

Especially since it’s kind of a tradition here. There’s a weekly market very close to HIAS, the Markt am Turmweg. And me and my colleagues like to go shopping there on Thursdays, just like you did today. 

We would put together different dips and everything and then we would eat together as a group. 

Is there something that you have always taken with you, that is your all-time favorite, that you can’t live without?  

Not really. Later, when I was abroad with my children, there always was something, namely “Haribo”. You don’t usually get that abroad and it’s very important for children. 

Actually, I was always very curious about the cuisine of the respective countries and tried to taste as much as possible. And then of course there is a phase when you live abroad for several years, and you really miss a pretzel or a roll or bread. It has to be said that Germany is very good at exporting these things. 

So, in the countries I’ve lived in, there were usually two things from Germany: German bakers offering German bread and cakes and things like that. And German beer. You can find German beer even in Mongolia. 

So, it’s basically all over the world. These are export hits, but you can find them everywhere. 

And is there a cuisine from the countries where you’ve lived for longer that has always fascinated or inspired you the most? 

Yes, definitely Thai cuisine. I’ve pretty much adopted it. My own kitchen in Bonn is equipped accordingly, there’s everything you need. From a big mortar and pestle to a rice cooker and a wok, of course, and I don’t know what else. And we still eat a lot of Thai food. It’s easy to make – lots and lots of vegetables, relatively little meat. 

I think it always tastes incredibly good. The guests are totally thrilled and very impressed, and it’s relatively easy to cook.

Did you learn it yourself or did you get a real training from someone, from a native in Thailand? 

In Thailand itself, I have to say, we had a chef. It was always nice to watch her. But when we came back to Germany, we already had two small children, and one of my students, Siri, went to Germany with me, a German scholar who wanted to do her master’s in Germany and lived with us. 

And Siri taught us how to cook really good Thai food. 

Where would you say you felt most at home in a culinary or we-eat-together world? Was it more in Thailand or maybe more in Indonesia? In England, if I remember correctly, you don’t tend to have that. 

It’s more of a drinking culture than an eating culture, isn’t it? I don’t mean that in a bad way. 

Well, I lived near the campus of the university where I was working, not in Exeter. And there, we always went out for lunch together, not to a dining hall. Exeter, being a large campus university, has a beautiful hall, and that’s where we ate.  But you’re right in principle. Eating together is incredibly important in Asia. Much, much more than here in the West, I would say. And of course it’s a great experience. There are always two things when you live abroad. On the one hand, you learn a lot about the country, and on the other hand, you learn a lot about yourself, including food. You’ve eaten things in Thailand that you wouldn’t touch with a fine-tooth comb. Even insects or snakes. So, there’s almost nothing you won’t eat. 

What was the strangest thing you ever ate? 

It’s something like cicadas, grilled. Some kind of animal that probably used to have wings, which are then grilled and certainly have a lot of protein. It actually tastes quite good. 

We shouldn’t mind the fact that we’re eating something that we’re not really used to eating. 

Even snakes are eaten. In terms of eating unusual things, China really stands out. From shark eyes to chicken claws and God knows what else. 

And you don’t have a choice. These were often official meals, when I was a guest at a university or a ministry. The Chinese have these beautiful round tables that they turn around in the middle. 

And then the host always makes sure that the best food is presented to you. Whether you agree that it’s actually the best food is another question. You just have to taste it, I close my nose and chew well and swallow.