Global Village

We all know that there are many ERASMUS Students in Graz. But how many do we actually know? Besides the exchange students in our courses of cours.

I didn't know many, but a few weeks ago my friend tragged me to this event.Global Village. I hadn't heard about it before and didn't know what to expect. The moment we arrived at the Meerscheinschlössl I noticed, it had to be something special. There was a long cue lining up outside waiting to be let in.

At the entrance we had to pay € 3,50 entrance fee and than inside there was a big room full with food. Many exchange students who are currently studying in Graz had prepared meals from their home country. The had set up tabels and the visitors could walk arround, taste the food and talk to the students who prepared it. It was really great fun. I tasted stuff I had never even heard about. Sometimes it was delicious and sometimes I just realized that if I am ever going to vist this country, I will have to make a big circle around this meals.

All in all it was a wonderful evening. I talked to people from many different countries like: the Philipines, Jordania, Mexico and many moor. They were very eager to tell me about their country and I was very curious to find out what an impression they have from austria.


I found out that this kind of event takes places two times a year, so once per semester. Next time I'm going to be there as well and I kan just recommend you try it.

Irish Easter

First of all, welcome back after the easter break.

I am sure we all enjoyed the days off and most of us have spent the holidays with their familys celebrating easter with many traditions.

In Austria there are a number of different traditions connected to easter. Some of them are the same but of course every family has a couple additional traditions just for themselves. In Ireland I am pretty sure it is the same. Curious about Irish easter traditions here is a short overview about what we have in comon and what is different in Austria and Ireland.

As we all know easter already starts 40 days before Easter Sunday. This period is called Lent. In the traditional way one should not eat meat during this time (many people try thesedays to go without something else they really like, for example chocolate). What I did not know is, that Irish people usually eat fish every friday in Lent in some kind of fish soup and they also do not eat eggs until Easter Sunday. In both countries eggs are a symbol for easter and the will get painted in different colours.

Of course the most important week in Lent is the last week also known as Holly week starting with Palm Sunday. On Friday, Good Friday, just like in Austria people try not to do any outside work and prepare themselves for Easter. Then comes Easter Saturday with the Easter Vigil in the evening. Which is the same in both countries again. Apparently we Austrians are the more unpatient folks and so we already have our easter Dinner on Saturday. It usually consists of homemade white bread, smoked meat, horseradish, vegetables, wine and off course eggs. All this food will previously be blessed by the priest. Irish people wait patiently until easter sunday for their special Easter meal. In Ireland this would usually includes potatoes, vegetables, meat, stuffing, bread and anything else that makes up a good proper Irish feast. All together the Irish Easter is not that different from the Austrian.

I hope you all had a Happy Easter. :-)

a jungle of food blogs

When I started looking for an interesting food blog I first thought, that this will be an easy task. Than I started searching for one on google and got 4,110,000,000 hits within not even half a minute!!!!

Thank's to a friend I found the taste-for-adventure blog. I emediatly was banned by the very yummie looking recipe for quinoa burgers with easy tzatziki sauce. Than I started browsing through the blog. On this blog you can find a lot of recipes for many different and international dishes. The recipes are accompanied by pictures that not only make you hungry, but are also colourfull and very self-explanatory. Unfortunately I have not had time to try one of the recipes but I am going to do so very soon. Of course I will let you all know about my experience with that.

Shepherd's Pie

As one of our main topics this semester food is going to be the thing our life revolves around. So this is my first post about it:

I first heard of and ate Shepherd's Pie in Great Britain. Now I found out that it is also very well known in Ireland. I do not know much about the history and the origin of this simple and delicious dish. Most certainly I do not know whether it was first cooked in Ireland or Great Britain.But what I do know about it, is that it came up at the very first beginning when the potato was introduced as an edible and cheap crop for the poor. Since than it spread and is now a very well known tradition in both countries.

From the very beginning this delicious disch was meant to be made from leftovers and that fact didn't change until today. Ofcourse you can prepare it with fresh ingredients, and I think many people do that. But for me it is really a great way of using upt leftover meat loaf, roast or mashed potatoes. That are basicly all the ingredients you need: Some kind of meat that is turned into some kind of sauce with vegetables, especially tomatoes, and mashed potatoes that come as a crust on top of it.

If some of you are now hungry for Shepherd's Pie, here is a very good recipe I can recommend.