Friendship and Cooking without Borders
Grant provider: EEA funds https://www.eeagrants.cz/
Number of project: EHP-CZ-MOP-2-020
Programme: Education
Type of project: Mobility project
Program facilitator: Dům zahraniční spolupráce http://www.dzs.cz/fondy-ehp
Implementation period: 08/2020 - 04/2023
Partner institution: Fitjar vidaregaande skule https://www.hordaland.no/nn-NO/skole/fitjarvgs
Main solver: Střední škola, Bor
Grant amount: 1,378,875 CZK
Our school is the first ever school in the Pilsen Region to apply for a grant to support pupil mobility from EEA funds. Not only did we apply, but we received the grant in full.
In order to be able to implement the project, we established a partnership with Fitjar secondary school vsg. in Norway, where future cooks and chefs are educated in one of the courses. As we later found out, establishing a partnership was the easiest part of the whole project. From the moment we received the grant, we ran into one obstacle after another. We were supposed to implement the project by August 2021, but due to the covid-19 pandemic, we were unable to travel. We asked to extend the project by a year and hoped that we would be able to carry out exchange stays, but the next wave of the coronavirus put a stop to us again. We were desperate, we wanted to give up on the project and return the grant, but in the end we decided to ask for another extension, which was approved until the end of April 2023. So we started planning and arranging dates with the partner school.
Project´s activities
Activity No. 1: Visit of Norwegian students
On Sunday, March 19, 2023, a Norwegian group of 6 students from the first year of the cookery course with two teachers arrived in Bor and we were able to implement the first part of the project. For the week that the Norwegians spent here, we prepared a rich program in which we introduced not only Czech, but also regional cuisine.
Over the course of a few days, we cooked together traditional Czech dishes: dill sauce with leavened dumplings, potato pancakes with cabbage salad, and buns with cottage cheese and egg white snow.
We dedicated one day to baking cookies, namely vanilla rolls and Linzer cookies. The rolls turned out to be difficult for the Norwegian students, but in the end they were also successful and the Norwegians liked the candy so much that they took it with them.
For the Norwegian students and their teachers, we also prepared tours of the local monuments, which we always visited in the afternoons after joint practical lessons. The program included a castle in Bor, a riding stable, a castle and walls in Tachov.
Since we are in the Pilsen region, where beer and brewing are an integral part of the local cuisine, we also took the Norwegian students to Pilsen, where we introduced them to regional dishes and provided them with a tour of the Pilsen brewery.
Activity No. 2: Travel of our students to Norway
8 of our students and 3 teachers traveled to Norway on 17/04/2023, just like our Norwegian pupils, they were expected to stay at a Norwegian school for a week.
On Monday, April 17, 2023, we flew from Prague Airport to Helsinki, where we transferred to a flight to Bergen, where we arrived in the early evening. In order for us to have a problem-free journey, on the day of our arrival there was a strike in Norway and ferry operations were restricted. In the end, we got the ferry and moved to the town of Fitjar, where we were supposed to spend the next 4 days. We were accommodated in a small hotel Sportell Fitjar right across from the partner school.
On Tuesday, under the guidance of the director, we had a tour of the partner secondary school, where we were introduced to the range of study fields and pupils. After that, we moved to the classroom, where a lecture on Norwegian gastronomy and traditional national dishes was prepared. This was followed by a tasting of selected dishes prepared by Norwegian pupils in the form of a multi-course menu.
Wednesday was marked by the joint preparation of Norwegian dishes, when our students together with their Norwegian partners prepared traditional Norwegian dishes in a modern way.
On Thursday, the program included a guided tour of the town of Fitjar, where our students got to know the history and, above all, the local gastronomy. In the afternoon we took a boat trip to Engesund to a salmon farm where we learned about sustainable salmon farming and its importance to Norwegian gastronomy and the food industry. We also had the opportunity to taste a salmon burger prepared from salmon raised on a local farm.
We spent Friday again in the kitchen preparing Norwegian dishes. After lunch together, when we tasted all the prepared dishes, we moved back to Bergen. This time the ferry trip was already without problems, because the strike had already ended. We stayed at the CityBox Hotel Bergen near the center.
On Saturday morning, we went to a secondary school near our hotel, where we were taught about another Norwegian specialty and important raw material, namely dried polar cod called Stockfish. We learned not only how cod is dried, but also how it is further processed in the kitchen. Part of the lecture was also devoted to the use of this raw material in other European cuisines, such as Italian, German, Slovenian, etc. There was also a tasting during the lecture. In the afternoon, we moved to the center of Bergen, where we had the opportunity to get to know the local gastronomy and taste various local dishes. In the evening, we already started packing and preparing to return home.
On Sunday, April 23, 2023, we moved to the airport, from where we flew back to Helsinki, where we were waiting for a transfer to the flight to Prague, where we arrived in the evening.