On the 25th of October, Örebro University held “Taste the World”, an event aimed at helping Swedish students learn more about the cultures and tastes from different countries, located just beside Studentcentrum at Långhuset. The International Office was proud to be responsible for the event, spearheaded by their head exchange coordinator Sofie Sjöberg.
The event attracted not only countries from outside the Nordic region, but also countries from the other side of the world. Steffen Cantillo, an exchange student from Colombia, decided to recreate his family recipe of chicken rice for the event. “I wanted to show our culture very much, considering the fact that I have not found many Latinos over here,” he said bursting with pride. When asked if he would be open to joining future international food events, Steffen said enthusiastically, “I will be interested to join again. I will prepare something else.”
His booth was one of the few dishes that were savoury in nature, with internationals from Italy and Finland bringing desserts like tiramisu and native chocolates to the table. Denmark went above and beyond, bringing one of each.
With only a total of 5 international students signing up for the event, Ms Sjöberg felt that this experience had the potential to become much bigger. However, she appreciated that many Swedish students still turned up inquisitively, asking questions about the different foods and cultures. “They actually approached us and asked ‘What is this?’, ‘Can you tell me more about it?’. So that’s nice to know that Swedes are not as shy as we thought,” she said.
Regardless of the turn out, Ms Sjöberg remained optimistic that future events will bear more fruit. She plans to find more ways to get both local and exchange students excited about sharing their cultures. “I hope that this thing grows, because this is also a way for international students to meet the Swedish students. If there are international students who want to join next time, I will be really happy.”
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