The Greatest Common Divisor of Cooking
Amsterdam, where the food cultures cross
Since I had a sad experience about food in Marseille, I had decided to cook myself in Amsterdam.
I went to a food market and found that everything was there.This was my first experience that I felt envy for food market outside Japan. As you may know, Japanese food markets, especially ones in Tokyo, show every food material from the world like, say, East Asia, South East Asia, India, West Asia, Middle East, Africa, Russia, Europe, North & South America, Australia, and even the Arctic Ocean. However, variety of food material in a market at Amsterdam was wider than Tokyo.
I enjoyed picking up some of them to cook for a friend in Amsterdam. She was kind enough to coach me in Dutch cuisine.
And this brought me the second shock.
The Dutch cooking is, in spite of its variety of material,very simple.Boiled potato just needs salt. White asparagus only needs nutmeg.Spinatch is fried with garlic and slightly salted.
They have the widest variety of foods, and they have the most simple way to cook in the world.
I found the greatest common divisor in terms of cooking in Amsterdam.