Spain
participants
The goal of this activity was for our international students to get to know more about the Catalan culture and its traditions with the company of very special people… the lovely elders from the Elderly Care Gran Via Park centre!
We have a very local festivity called the castanyada here in Catalunya. It used to be celebrated during All Saints’ Day, but nowadays it is extended during the whole month of October. We celebrate this by eating typical autumn fruits: chestnuts, sweet potatoes and a local sweet called panellets! Panellets are a truly local and seasonal meal, so we wanted to show our Erasmus how we make them.
Both Erasmus students and ESN coordinators walked together to the residence, where we sat with the elders that wanted to take part in the cooking workshop. The therapists had already prepared the dough so that it would be easier for us to continue the task: turn the dough into small round figures and dip into egg yolk and then adding the additional coating! We made chocolate, coconut and pine nuts panellets. After preparing all the panellets –which took a long time–, we filled the table with traditional food that our Erasmus students brought from home to share with the elders.
All participants were super happy in the end; on our way home, our international students thanked us and said they had a really good time, and the therapists at the residence told us that on the next day the trending topic at the residence was the cooking workshop they had with ESN! <3