An Indian cooking course in Amsterdam. The location: the teacher's - Priya Machado - home on one of those famous Amsterdam canals. She's hosting four students one evening a week, for six weeks. Just enough time to get them started with the techniques and tastes of Indian cuisine.
 
Priya is from Bangalore, in southern India. She has lived in the Netherlands for nearly 11 years, and in that time has introduced hundreds of Dutch people to the spices of her native country. But, after a decade here, what does she think about Dutch food?

"If I have to be honest, I think it's very bland [she laughs]. My husband is Dutch and sometimes when I ask him what he wants for dinner, he says boiled potatoes. I must say I miss my Indian food if I only have Dutch food. There's not the spice in it, and I miss the spice."

Audio version from this edition of RNW's Curious Orange

 
Toning down
She may miss the spice, but Dutch people can have a hard time adjusting to it. After 11 years, Priya knows how to smooth the transition. She tones down the spices, for one thing, and she uses ingredients familiar to the Dutch palette.
 
On this particular evening, they are making the components for a thali, usually a vegetarian meal consisting of several smaller dishes made from potatoes, cauliflower, eggplant and tomato. Priya is also not shy about mixing and matching dishes from around the Indian subcontinent.
 
"Now we go back to Bengal, I like Bengali food, and it's northeastern again, same idea as the chutney. Tomato chutney. Cauliflower Bengali style. Then going back to southern India: potatoes, either for a pancake filling or chapatti.

And if you like potatoes and if you want to influence your Dutch friends to go away from boiled potatoes and 'stampot', this could be an Indian version of 'stampot'. So actually when I cook this for Rob, my husband, he really likes it because it has got potatoes. You still have the feeling you're eating potatoes, but with an Indian touch."
 
The Indian touch in the Netherlands is small, but growing. In addition to Priya, there are a number of similar Indian cooking courses in Amsterdam. Another new Indian restaurant recently opened its doors in the capital, and you can eat in at least one authentic Indian restaurant in all the major Dutch cities.
 
Indians who are Dutch
There are approximately 20,000 first or second-generation Indian immigrants living here. But there are also 180,000 ethnic Indians living in the Netherlands who came here from Surinam, in South America. Their ancestors may have left India 150 years ago, but they still have deep cultural ties to India and many are involved in promoting the relationship between the Indian community and native Dutch.
 
And the Indian expat community is growing, partly thanks to new policies aimed at attracting highly skilled people to work in the Netherlands. Annual trade between the countries grew from half a billion euros in 1990, to 2.2 billion euros in 2005.
 
So, have the growing ties between the two countries translated into more awareness of Indian culture? Or do Dutch people take Indian cooking classes to compensate for their own Dutch cuisine?
 
Dutch cuisine?
At Priya's cooking class, Arjen, Relinda and Ria say it's a little of both. But they are reluctant to say there's anything wrong with Dutch cuisine.
 
"Does it exist? [...] Nothing is wrong but nowadays nobody in Holland has their meals only in a Dutch way, like my mother cooked. Even my mother tried macaroni and spaghetti in the 50s [...] There's nothing wrong with it, it's like a melting pot."
 
Arjen says he has already started cooking Indian meals for his family, but for him taking the course is about more than that:
 
"It's not just the food, of course, because food is the product of a whole process. It's a whole culture. How do you get the food in the first place? Who's buying what for whom? It's like a whole big complex issue and this is just the end product." 
 
All the students say they like to travel, and at the same time they are concerned about the current anti-immigrant sentiment in the Netherlands. Relinda says she is glad so many immigrants still find their way to this country.
 
"I think it's nice that it's both ways, so you can enrich each other. It's very enriching, all the people coming here. We learn from them, they learn from us."'
 
The meal at Priya's cooking course demonstrates how knowledge flows both ways. Looking over the plates on the table, this could almost be a normal Dutch meal, though without any meat. Potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes, eggplant, bread. It's a little bit spicy, but adjusted to the Dutch palate.