International Food Moments by an Exchange Student

As a nutritionist and food lover, I can’t resist writing to you about food from a cultural angle. When I was living in Valencia, Spain as an exchange student, I experienced five months of a wonderful diversity of ‘gastronomies’ from different parts of the world that I now have the pleasure of sharing with you. But first grab something to eat because I bet you this story is going to make your mouth water!

food international

For breakfast, when there were no early morning classes, we had the time to prepare a brunch – a slow and delicious breakfast, as complete as a lunch. It took long to prepare and even more time to savor. Two lovely Polish girls, a handsome Finnish boy and I (from Portugal) went to the kitchen in our pyjamas to cook scrambled eggs and fill-up the dining table with sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, ham, cheese, smoked salmon, Ruispalat – the brown bread that is typically Finnish, milk with coffee, yogurts and muesli. This breakfast was a tasty combination of the breakfasts we each typically have in our different countries.

As a mid morning snack, it was hard to resist having a delicious tostada Catalana (‘Catalan toast’) at the faculty: a toast of white bread covered with fresh tomato pulp and olive oil. Unbelievably Mediterranean! … and so easy to prepare!

My Portuguese flat mate and I used to have lunch at the faculty canteen. That was the highlight of our regular faculty days; after all, we were just two aspiring nutritionists facing a great variety of typical Spanish plates, such as Valencian paella (with rosemary!), tortilla de patatas and seafood fideos (a Spanish noodle dish). As is normally done according to Valencian gastronomy, we could choose two plates, and for dessert, we would have natillas or lemon yogurt, all original flavors to our palate.

Portuguese connection
On days when my Portuguese flat mate and I had enough time to cook, we chose to prepare a real Portuguese soup: a soft orange cream made so by lots of carrots, with crispy peas. After about a month in Valencia, we had to buy what we called in Portugal ‘magic wand’, to turn the potatoes, the onions, the garlic and the carrots into that soft cream.

The French connection
One day, in the middle of the afternoon, my French flat mate came home with a friend of his and went into the kitchen, carrying some plastic bags. They were about to cook a quiche Lorraine, a classic of the French cuisine, to take to the welcome dinner at their University. He did act like an authentic Frenchman in Spain. It wasn’t uncommon sometimes at the end of the day, before dinner, to see him relaxing on the sofa with a glass of red wine, a plate of sliced tomatoes and a packet of the French cheese Camembert. But he really was just a cute spoiled French boy! So many times he received big boxes full of French food his mother sent him by post! Those days were particularly happy ones for him.

The Finnish connection
But he was not the only one. A Finnish friend of mine used to ask all his friends coming to visit from Finland to bring as many packages as they could carry of ruispalat, that special Finnish bread. In the beginning, he told me that the white, warm and crispy Spanish bread tasted really good but not too long after, he began missing the bread he grew up eating.

For dinner, I especially remember the boiled potatoes with cream and mushrooms this special Finnish friend of mine used to cook. Not too long after being in Finland, I had understood this to be a typical Finnish dish, even though my friend didn’t recognize it as one, because it had some of the most important foods the Finns like: potatoes, mushrooms and cream. Of course, I was always invited to drink a glass of milk, much to my delight.

An Italian connection
Some other days, I was invited to have an Italian dinner at Avenida del Primado Reig, where four Italians appeared at the door, hurrying because they were cooking a wonderful pasta al dente, with cherry-tomatoes, Mozarella cheese and oreganos – just as simple as true Italian pasta has to be, I was told. We would eat that with the great variety of tapas (appetizers) the Spanish neighbors would bring, while listening to the classic Italiano Vero. In the end, we indulged in an Italian espresso coffee, creamy as we were used to having in Portugal, but completely different from the large cups of  liquid American Coffee Finnish students looked for at Starbucks.

The Belgian connection
At the Christmas dinner, I tasted the Belgian mules, fresh mussels cooked how, I have no idea but very delicious. And to sweeten our mouth, the Belgian girl of the flat used to offer us the chocolate Côte D’Or, “the authentic chocolate,” she proudly said.

Before I left Valencia, exactly one year and one day ago, to leave me with good memories of Poland, one of my friends gave me a packet of polish spices so I could prepare a glühwein in Portugal, to warm up my heart. And then there was the last dinner: a Portuguese plate of codfish (bacalhau, in Portuguese) I cooked for my international family for the last time, grateful for all the wonderful gastronomic moments we had spent together.

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