A Slice of Schwarzbrot
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Uta Luisa Due carefully places miniature German flags upon a collection of bite-sized schwarzbrot (German black bread). Elsewhere in the room, German students smear pieces of schwarzbrot with cream cheese and top them with sliced cucumber. Due grabs a knife and, humming along to German pop music, she moves into motion, slicing apart a sheet of recently baked black bread. The process begins anew.
Uta Lusia Due is a 22 year old German student currently taking summer classes at UC Berkeley. She hails from the village of Dingden, where she learned to bake and play the electric keyboard. Currently Due resides in the city of Gütersloh, where she’s been working for a media company and finishing up her final years of schooling.
Professionally, Due is focused on the field of marketing. Though today she says that she enjoys how it’s all turned out, Due took her first steps into the business world because of the entrancingly wide safety net presented by the numerous potential career options.
“You get in touch with finance, legal, HR,” said Due, “you get to know everything a little bit.”
The structure of the German school system played a large part in her decision. University is free in Germany, and Due believes this to result in a higher level of emphasis on grades when compared to the United States.
Deciding upon a field of study is often one of the more difficult decisions of the average high school graduate’s life. The general education system that American underclassmen must wade through is not as present in the German schooling system. Any change of heart on a studied subject, even if the subject is in a similar field, can set a student back for years. According to Due, many in Germany take gap years or otherwise attempt to delay this choice.
“Most of them don’t know their character, what they’re going to do” said Due.
In comparing her German educational experience to Berkeley, Due first noticed a drastic difference in course work. America has substantially more day to day homework assignments while Germany is all about the final exam. Due says that some German students catch the dreaded procrastination bug early in their term, only to be forced to cram the material down their own throats during the last few weeks. Despite differences, Due indicates that the atmosphere of German universities is typically closer to the serious side.
“Americans tend to not be so worried about the future,” said Due, “Somehow they figure it out.”
In her personal life Due has spent months playing the flute and years on the electric keyboard. She has danced, played volleyball, and ridden horses. Perhaps most consistently though, she has enjoyed cooking and everything that goes along with it. The eating and the tasting, especially, but Due finds time to speak for the many intricacies involved. All of the baking,basting, boiling, browning, heating, roasting, grilling, simmering, sizzling, brewing, stewing, toasting… it amounts to a blanketing warmth that comes from sharing one’s own cultural specificities through the most mandatory of human needs. Food is an instant connection.
For Due, the experience of creating food resonates closely with the glow of friendship and family. It’s been a part of her life since she was young.
“My mom told me, ‘okay, you’re allowed to do anything in the kitchen as long as you clean it up afterwards’,” said Due. “at some point it was like 8pm or 9pm but I wanted to try this: I wanted to do a quiche… at 11pm it was ready… My parents thought I was crazy, but it was fun and I had my quiche.”
Food is a social and cultural instrument that Due handles with care. In each moment, from tasting to serving, she’s able to find satisfaction.
“Sharing is the best part of it, I think,” said Due, “it’s even more fun if you can make it with somebody else.”
