food – Page 2 – eMag Uni Augsburg

Review Trend & Food and Street Food Festival 2016

Augsburg really seems to be becoming a food city. In 2016, the city had three food events. Trend & Food Augsburg, which took place at the Kongress am Park between April 15 and 17, was the first. It really had a lot to offer: bars, food trucks, candy, hors d’oeuvre, vegan options and much more. And even though the Kongresshalle isn’t that big, there were a lot of different booths and everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. Whiskey, liquor and moonshine tasting were some of the fun booze-related activities you could indulge in. How about some tiny but delicious cupcakes? Sure! At some – if not most – of the booths, you could use the vouchers you got for paying to get in. This way you basically got all your money back and theoretically the entrance was free (with the early bird ticket at least).

Trend & Food was pretty small, but the bigger event was the Street Food Markt, which took place in May and between September 23 and 25, 2016 at the Gögginger Festplatz. Compared to 2015, there were almost twice as many booths and almost no waiting time at all. Everybody seemed to be crazy about those potato spiral thingies – they were delicious, but we couldn’t figure out if there were bread crumbs on them or not. The smoothie booth was a nice touch. I actually ordered the first Green Bull of the day. The pies, a ton of different versions of hot dogs, BBQ, pizza, Israeli and vegan booths also gave visitors an opportunity to try something new. One of my favorites was definitely the donuts: they looked, smelled and tasted like heaven! And if you were there early, you could easily get a very nice spot on a deckchair and enjoy the sun while nibbling on something yummy and drinking a cocktail, beer, smoothie or just plain water.

So… you might like to consider going to one of those festivals. It’s definitely worth it!

Author & Pictures: Susi Tallmadge

New year, new me

You might think it’s a bit late for a New Year article, but is it really? It’s only one month into 2017 and I don’t know about you, but I’ve already ignored half of my New Year’s resolutions at least once. If experience in the past few years is anything to go by, though, I’ll have to wait until next year to give it a go again. But there’s a way to break the trend and still achieve your goals. Yes, even today!

Less chocolate, more sports

Judging from the commercials and articles I see around this time of the year, the top resolutions are: being healthier (including doing more sports, losing weight and downing smoothies for breakfast), as well as classics like quitting smoking. Being more organized is also a favorite, at least for me anyway. I don’t know how you feel, but the Christmas holidays, including New Year’s Eve, are (also) exceptional compared to other times of the year. So this might be the worst time to start working on goals that you want to continue to work on when you’re back in your normal routine. But that doesn’t mean
that you shouldn’t have them.

Start next Monday

Know the feeling when it’s 3:11 p.m. and you have to study, but you just can’t because 3:11 isn’t the right time? You have to wait until 4 p.m.! I think most of us struggle with our resolutions in a similar way. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to wait a whole year to achieve your goals. There are so many new beginnings: start in the next hour, next Monday, next month – whenever you feel like it!

Small steps

Needless to say, goals require a plan, and plans require to-do lists (written on pretty paper because that makes you more organized, of course). Instead of writing “Be a perfect student from next week on“, you might prefer “set aside fifteen minutes a day to keep track of assignments“. This not only sounds more doable and motivating, but actually ticking off things on your list will give you a good feeling.

Help!

Still thinking this won’t work for you? It’s time to look for someone you can tell what you’re about to do. Whenever I tell someone about my plans, I get motivated on the spot. The next time you see this person, you’ll obviously want to tell him or her about what you’ve done since you last saw each other. And answering “Hmm…nothing“ doesn’t feel too good, does it? Let’s try to achieve our goals together (in 2017, not 2018)!

Author & Pictures: Laura Annecca

What a feast!

Everyone celebrating Christmas knows the struggle. You do one thing on the days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve: eating. No matter if it’s traditional stuff like roast, gravy and dumplings or more fancy dinners; it’s all about food.

Little helpers

Magazines, fitness tutorials and gyms seem to know exactly how everyone should lose the few extra kilograms after the Christmas holidays. But looking at those advertisements and instructions, it seems more like a torture. So, I thought of some fun ways to get your flat belly back without any kind of dieting or forcing yourself to a fitness marathon.

Sledging and aqua fit

Unfortunately, the most important thing for my first idea was missing until the beginning of January. I can hardly remember a white Christmas. In the last few years, there wasn’t even a single snowflake during the Christmas holidays and without snow there is no chance to go sledging. We’re lucky, because we’ve got some snow now, so you could go out, get your old sledge out of the cellar or the attic, run up the next hill or mountain and enjoy coming down. It’s as much fun for adults as for children and walking back up will shed the extra pounds you gained from too many biscuits.

You may have seen following sport once in an indoor swimming pool, but I guess you were too ashamed to participate. Personally, I had also been embarrassed to do aqua sports for years until a friend of mine – under the age of 30 – dragged me along to a lesson in my local swimming pool. Surprisingly, it was a lot of fun and it turned out to be very effective: I woke up the next day with sore muscles. The coach chose cool music and the movements got more and more difficult. So, next time you’re in a public swimming pool and they offer aqua courses, give it a try – you won’t regret it.

Icy conditions

I discovered this new way of losing weight after Boxing Day. My nephews and I were stuffed with delicious food cooked by my mother and we were longing for fresh air and a bit of exercise. We took our table tennis bats and went out to the public table for a game. It had been rainy and chilly the whole day and the table was icy in some places, but we didn’t mind and started our first round. Whenever the ball hit the icy spots it glided uncontrollably in an unexpected direction. This made our match more fun. Don’t be afraid of an icy ping-pong table – if the ground is solid you’ll have an arduous game.

You can discover many more funny ways of losing weight. This was just my small contribution and if you’re too lazy to start right away, there’s plenty of time left to lose the extra kilograms by the summer holidays.

Author & Pictures: Marlene Hupfer

Happy Thanksgiving!

The origin of Thanksgiving

In the year 1620, a group of 102 men, women and children also known as the Pilgrims, wanted to find religious freedom and they sailed on the Mayflower to a shore in America called Plymouth, Massachusetts. They arrived in America on December 11, 1620. The first winter was very harsh and 55 of the 102 Pilgrims died of hunger or sickness. Thankfully, in the following year some friendly Indians called Wampanoag helped them by teaching them how to grow corn, how to harvest berries, and where and how to hunt and fish. Because of this the next harvest was good and the Pilgrims had enough food to store for the next winter. In October, 1621 they celebrated the first Thanksgiving to thank God for helping them. In 1863, US President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day to be a national holiday. He proclaimed the last Thursday of November an official day of celebration.

Why Thanksgiving Day is my favorite Holiday

The spirit of Thanksgiving has endured throughout the years and has made it one of the most important holidays in the USA.

Born to an American mom and a German dad, my life has been shaped a lot around American holidays and traditions and my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. To me it’s special time of the year with memorable moments, as different things are shared on this special day: preparations, typical smells of homemade dinner rolls and sweet pies spiced with cinnamon and cloves. I love the warm comfortable atmosphere, good conversations, family quality time and friends coming to visit and not to forget all the delicious food like roast turkey, baked ham, cranberries and sweet potatoes.

What did the chicken say on Thanksgiving Day?
What did the chicken say on Thanksgiving Day?
The chicken said: “hey!”,
I’m glad I’m not a turkey
I’m glad I’m not a turkey on “Thanksgiving Day“

Same procedure as every year

The turkey and ham are ordered a week before. Even though Thanksgiving is always celebrated on the last Thursday in November, my family celebrates Thanksgiving on a Saturday. It would not be possible during the week here in Germany. We prepare pumpkin and pecan pies the day before. The first thing to be done on Saturday is to pick up the turkey at the local poultry farmer, as it’s too big to fit in the fridge! The bird weighs 8-9 kg, as we’re always a big group getting together in the evening. The bird is prepared and stuffed with old-fashioned bread stuffing and put into the oven. One hour for each kilogram – makes nine in total. Only then can we begin with the cranberry sauce, glazed ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, sweet potatoes with marshmallows and the vegetable sticks.

What did the rabbit say on Thanksgiving Day?
What did the rabbit say on Thanksgiving Day?
The rabbit said: “hey!”,
I ‘m glad I’m not a turkey
I ‘m glad I’m not a turkey on “Thanksgiving Day“

Getting ready for the feast

Slowly but surely the house fills; family first, to help with cleaning up and laying the table and then the friends arrive around five o’clock. Everybody mingles. The whole house smells amazing. We’re all starving since we haven’t eaten much during the day in order to have enough space in our stomachs for the feast. Finally we gather around the beautifully laid-out dinner table and say grace.

The tension increases when the star of the evening is taken out of the oven. How did it turn out? Is the meat juicy, tender and the skin crisp? This delicious smell of cooked turkey adds to the other aromas in the air: scents of stuffing with celery and sage, toasted marshmallows and candied sweet potatoes, roasted sizzling ham and red wine. My brother-in-law cuts the turkey. When everybody has filled their plates we finally start.

Yummy!

What did the turkey say on Thanksgiving Day?
What did the turkey say on Thanksgiving Day?
The turkey said „hey!”,
It’s tough to be a turkey
It’s tough to be a turkey on “Thanksgiving Day.” (Carolyn Graham, Holiday Jazz Chants)

Time for dessert

Having eaten far too much, we start emptying the table, put the leftovers in containers to go, and pick off the last pieces of the turkey meat for turkey sandwiches the next day. Before we get ready for the sweet finale, we retell the story of the first Thanksgiving or we take a moment and write down what we are thankful for. Then it is time to enjoy the pies.

Author & Pictures: Elisabeth Stützel

Typically “Gaijin”

I guess there aren’t many people who have never been to a sushi place or Japanese restaurant at least once in their lifetime. The colorful rice rolls have become more and more popular over the past years, as the vast offer of different restaurants in Augsburg alone suggests! Japanese food such as sushi, just to name one of the many different and delicious dishes Japanese cuisine has to offer, also represents a part of Japanese culture. If you not only want to show respect this, but also the effort the itamae (the sushi chef) is putting into your dish, it’s important to eat it the way it’s supposed to be eaten – otherwise you might come across as a rude gaijin (jap. 外人, lit. translates to “person from outside”, “outsider”). The word has a very strong negative connotation and has been used to describe non-Japanese people, especially western people. Today, though, it’s being replaced by the more formal gaikokujin (jap. 外国人, “person from a foreign country”).

So, to get the most out of your sushi-eating experience, whether in Germany, in one of our lovely Japanese restaurants, or in Japan itself, try to avoid the five following no-gos!

1. Don’t cut your sushi into smaller pieces with your chopsticks – If possible, try to eat the sushi in one bite, as the chef always creates a balanced piece of the delicious food. For example, eat a bit of pickled ginger before switching to another type of sushi in order to neutralize the taste and prepare your palate for the next sensation.

2. Speaking of chopsticks – Don’t pierce your sushi (or rice in a bowl) with them and leave them standing vertically – This is a sign of death and is considered very rude.

3. Don’t put wasabi into the soy sauce and blend them – Soy sauce and wasabi should never be mixed. Put a little wasabi on your sushi and then dip it into the soy sauce. And nigiri sushi usually doesn’t require any extra wasabi, as there is already a thin layer between the rice and the fish.

4. Don’t eat sashimi with your hands – Sashimi, raw pieces of fish without rice, are not supposed to be eaten with your fingers. Use your chopsticks! However, it’s perfectly acceptable to eat nigiri sushi with your hands, to avoid destroying its delicate structure.

5. Don’t dip nigiri into the soy sauce rice side first – The integrity of the rice will be destroyed if you do. Instead, dip it into the sauce upside-down, and eat it this way, too, so that the fish hits your taste buds first.

Paying attention to these few things will make your dinner more authentic and a blast, not only for you and your friends, but also for the restaurant staff! Appreciating another culture is not difficult, so why not start by doing so with appropriate eating etiquette?

And don’t forget: Have fun, and don’t be THAT person! 🙂

Author & Picture: Mélanie Fournier

“Twist, lick, dunk” – Small, but oh my!

Oreo is the most popular cookie in the US and it’s no wonder there’s even a National Oreo Day, March 6th! The variety of Oreo products is huge and Google hits are overflowing with an infinite number of recipe ideas. Whilst the US is totally oreonized, the supply in German shelves is a complete joke. But hey, we do have at least four to five choices at our shops and we live in the era of online shopping, anyway, don’t we? But what makes this little cookie so special?

Cookie of a respectable age

Without any doubt, you can take your hat off to the cookie’s proud age of 104 years. Launched by Nabisco company in 1912, Oreo is ten years older than Germany’s famous Haribo gummi bear. The idea of two chocolate-flavoured wafers filled with a vanilla-flavoured cream wasn’t that new, though, at the time. Oreo’s manufacturers were probably a little too inspired by the Hydrox cookie, that had been produced since 1908 by Sunshine company. Well, Oreo’s sales were better, and thus they outdid Hydrox.

Twist or dunk?

Tell me how you eat your Oreo and I’ll tell you who you are. No, just kidding. But still, you can’t just scoff the whole cookie. I mean, this would almost be an offence. Come on, Oreo’s catchy ad already tells you how to eat it. First, twist off one side, then lick the creamy middle and finally dunk the wafers into milk. Let’s do it! Of course, you’ll find fine print somewhere on the package that says: twist the wafers with sensitivity, best of all over a huge dish, unless you enjoy hoovering, and don’t drown the wafers in your milk, unless you want to lose half of your cookie in it. Ugh!

Oreo emblem

Very well then, let’s pretend we’ve followed these unwritten eating instructions. But have you ever noticed the cookie’s design before, or have you simply lived from package to milk to mouth so far? Never mind. Oreo owes its current design, which dates back to 1952, to William A. Turnier. It looks a bit like a mystical emblem, followed by several intriguing speculations: is there a connection with the Knights Templar? Some people recognise a number of cross pattees around the word Oreo and a two-bar cross that might symbolise the Cross of Lorraine. Others say the word Oreo is surrounded by four-leaf clovers, and the two-bar cross represents the former European symbol for quality. Well, in my opinion the two-bar cross simply looks like an arrow going through the word Oreo. Only humbug?

Vegan gold bar

Delicious and always a joy to eat, and, needless to say, a big earner. Hence O-r-e-o? “Or” – the French word for gold. In the end, though, it’s simply cream between two chocolate wafers. And, last not least, a big hooray for all vegans and lactose intolerant people: Oreo is vegan!

Author & pictures: Melanie Schuster

It’s not about the money

We all know this problem: the desire to discover new places in the world, see as much as you can, but without much cash. So what do most backpackers do? They save their money on food: fast food, instant noodles or sandwiches. Anything that‘s easy to prepare and that fills your tummy.

But when I was in Sydney, I discovered a place where you can get really good restaurant food, even on a small travel budget. Lentil as Anything is a non-profit-making organisation which runs six pay-as-you-feel restaurants in Australia. Their philosophy is that everyone should have the opportunity to eat out and be social, regardless of their financial situation.

When you enter the restaurant, it’s a warm and welcoming atmosphere. The furniture is simple but modern, designed with much love and creativity. The walls are covered with paintings and other artwork. Every table has a menu that offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, depending on the time of the day. You might expect that the low costs mean it’s automatically self-service, but I was more than surprised that after a few minutes a friendly waitress came to our table to take our order. We felt like guests at her house and she was inviting us for dinner.

The people working in Lentil as Anything are all volunteers or long-term unemployed. Or backpackers. For two weeks of helping out in the restaurant, backpackers can get free accommodation and, of course, a warm meal. And the meals are not only more nutritious and diversified, but also much healthier than a Big Mac Menu at McDonalds.

One aim of the restaurant is to promote multiculturalism, which is also reflected in the food. It’s basically a mix of everything. One customer is having Indian curry for breakfast, while at another table people are having scrambled eggs with bacon. And, of course, there are vegan meals too. And if you‘re still hungry, you can order the banana pancakes with syrup (which I can only recommend!). Before you leave, you can think about how much money you want to spend and put in in the box. And if you want or if you can’t spend anything at all, then you simply don’t put anything in the box.

Now you may be asking the same question that came to my mind after visiting this place: how can the place survive? Can, in today’s society, such a model make enough money to pay the rent, utilities and stock? Apparently it is. The philosophy has been working for over thirteen years now and in the last five years three new restaurants have been opened.

Surprisingly, people who visit the restaurant are not only homeless or backpackers, but also families with a normal income, who get the chance to take their children to a restaurant to enjoy good food more often. And that‘s how donations are collected.

So, for your next trip remember that a small travel budget does not necessarily have to mean that you can’t afford to eat out in a restaurant – the pay-as-you-feel philosophy is becoming more and more popular in all parts of the world, and who knows, maybe there‘s a similar place at your next destination 😉

Author & pictures: Carina Lamb