On my trips to Indonesia, my mother always packs me a care package of spices to bring back home to Berlin. These typically contain the lowest common denominator spices that form the many base of Indonesian cuisine like whole candlenut, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, tamarind, coriander, turmeric. All these things I can get in Berlin, only, you know, more intense in flavour, and occasionally she’d put in a surprise ingredient or two. Like ground chili paste. Or fermented shrimp paste (in an airtight bag naturally).
