Steven Milbert came up with the idea while he was preparing one of his favorite Luxembourg dishes in the kitchen of his student flat.

Bouneschlupp, a vegetable soup with beans, potatoes and carrots.

A national dish in his home country.

The twenty-three-year-old cooks well and enjoys it.

"I cook every day, even more complicated dishes," says Milbert, who studies history at the TU Darmstadt with a focus on modernity/history of technology.

He even watches one or the other cooking video.

However, he is the exception rather than the rule.

He knows from his fellow students that preparing food outside of the canteen, kebab shop or delivery service can be a challenge.

So why not help and write a cookbook for students, he thought.

With easy-to-cook recipes that are delicious, healthy, varied and inexpensive.

Pierogi, fufu, dumplings with bacon

The young Luxembourger belongs to the #StudentsofTUdarmstadt group, whose members act as a kind of international ambassadors at the university.

Milbert's idea was well received there, and nine amateur cooks were found who contributed a total of 30 international recipes for starters, main courses and desserts to the book project.

There should be something for every taste: simple and quick or sometimes more complex.

These include dishes from Poland, Ukraine, Sri Lanka, France, Germany and Luxembourg.

Borschtsch, Karpatka, Pierogi, Fufu with peanut sauce or Kniddelen with bacon are recipes that mostly come from the students' home countries, as Milbert explains.

In their cookbook, the group wanted to present Hessian dishes in addition to international ones, and so there are now also suggestions for green sauce or cooking cheese.

"After all, we're studying in Hesse," says Milbert.

He himself loves green sauce, which is why he has placed the Hessian classic with potatoes and eggs on the sides.

"Everyone should contribute something he or she likes."

Milbert already had time to try the local cuisine during his bachelor's degree.

He came to the TU Darmstadt in 2018.

The Luxembourger wants to be a teacher, and the TU offers a joint bachelor's degree, for which he could choose two majors, history and German.

A degree that he is now supplementing with a master’s degree in history – an advantage for his later school career.

But Darmstadt also appealed to him for another reason: "I've been a Lilien fan since my youth." In the hometown of SV Darmstadt 98 he can be very close to his football club.

From YouTube to the cookbook

Sharmila Nadarajah also contributed recipes for the book.

"I was excited about the idea right away," she says.

The twenty-four-year-old is studying philosophy and teaching at high schools, majoring in German and biology.

She is also a passionate YouTuber and uploads her own cooking videos online, in which she prepares recipes.

For example, spicy spring rolls from their homeland of Sri Lanka, but also the classic cheeseburger.

She cooks the dishes alone or together with her mother in her parents' apartment in Frankfurt.

However, there are few cooking suggestions from Sri Lanka in the TU students' cookbook.

Some of the dishes are very spicy, the ingredients are not easy to come by and the cooking equipment is not all available in Germany, explains Nadarajah.

The TU supported the initiative of its students.

The university commissioned a printing company and also assumed the costs, reports Ann-Kathrin Schwarz from the university's student marketing department.

Initially 750 copies were printed.

"However, we are planning a reprint if necessary, since there is great interest within the TU," says Schwarz.

For example, the freshmen received a copy of the cookbook at the university's welcome party.

Actually, Steven Milbert recalls, everything happened very quickly.

It took just four months from the idea to printing.

“We did everything ourselves.

Even the layout.” The texts are written in German and English, and the students also did the translation.

The book is available free of charge at the TU.

If you want to cook recipes yourself, you can also download them from the university's website.

The group also gives tips for healthy eating.

The response is great.

Since then, Steven Milbert has been receiving emails from fellow students telling him which dishes they have cooked and how they tasted.

Even a partner university of the TU in Austria got in touch with him, as he says.

The special thing is that "it's a cookbook by students for students".