Culinary trip through Europe

Erasmus+ K2 project “Culinary trip through Europe” starts its journey from Spain in April 2017. This journey is put into practice by four Vocational Schools from Austria, Estonia, Finland and Spain and it gives the students of these school a practical sight into different topics, which are very actual our days.

The topics that will be covered are:

How to prepare traditional Cuisine with healthy background considering allergies;
How to prepare traditional Cuisine using new techniques in kitchen (sous vide, core temperature, IT-controlled-preparation);
How to prepare traditional Cuisine with Slow Food Philosophy and Biodiversity;
How to prepare ethnic food considering international migration and tourism (halal, kosher, Hindi).

The schools meet four times, starting from Spain in April 2017, in Finland in May 2017, in Estonia in October 2017 and in Austria in spring 2018.

The third culinary trip was carried out in Estonia, in Haapsalu Vocational Education and Training Centre. The teams from four countries spent five days getting to know Estonia, it’s food, customs, sights and traditions.

Every day of the meeting had a different topic and different a goal and at the end of the week, the students from Austria, Spain and Finland had learned quite a lot of new things about Estonia. For most of the students, it was their first time to visit Estonia and none of them had cooked Estonian food before.

The first day – Getting to know each other.

All the participants told their story, introduced their school and got a guided tour in the premises of Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre (HKHK). In the afternoon Ranno Paukson, the main chef of two well-known restaurants in Tallinn (Ö and Kaks Kokka), talked the students about the Nordic food and the new trends in Estonian cooking.

Culinary trip through Europe – HKHK

The second day – Getting to know Haapsalu

During the day we saw the Haapsalu Railway Station, Paralepa Beach, Port of Rohuküla from where you can take a ferry to the Estonian islands, old Military airfield of Haapsalu which dates back to the Soviet times, Haapsalu Episcopal Castle, with its story of the White Lady, the Promenade of Haapsalu with the summer restaurant Kuursaal, Bench of Tchaikovsky and African Beach and had a nice lunch at Nina Farm, which was located on the peninsula and where we tasted the home-made soup of seven fish and freshly baked bread. The day ended with Bowling match and enjoying Estonian pizzas at Pizza Grande.

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The third day – Getting to know Tallinn

On the third day, we had a trip to the Estonian capital Tallinn. We started our walking tour from Toompea where we stepped into the Aleksander Nevski Cathedral, admired the beautiful view of the roofs of old Tallinn and ended on the Townhall Square. After that, we visited the Balti Jaama Market and tasted the street food. After that, we visited the Food Fair, where the Young Chef Competition was taking place and on our way home had a dinner at Padise Manor house restaurant.

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Food Fair – tasting

The fourth day – Getting to know Estonian food

On the fourth day, the students were divided into teams and they started to cook two Estonian menus – the Party Menu and the Old Estonian Menu. When everything was cooked, it was set on the tables and all the participants had a big Estonian dinner. Even the Estonian journalist joined them and wrote a long article in the local newspaper. To be sure that nobody will forget how to cook Estonian food fabulous videos were made under the guidance of the office work students of HKHK.

And here you can watch how the videos were made:

The fifth day – Getting Creative

The last day came so quickly but everybody had made a lot of friends and it wasn’t difficult to be creative together in the kitchen. With the list of ingredients, given by the cooking teachers Kersti and Tiina, the students had to show their cooking skills and cook whatever they wanted. The table was full of tasty food which proved that the Culinary Trip in Estonia was creative, tasty and full of joy.