Latvian – My Fulbright Experience

Every Friday at the Summer Language Institue we have a “happy hour” picnic (no alcohol involved) and a different group of language classes cooks and serves food from their region. My Estonian class was paired up with the rest of BALSSI to prepare Baltic food. So Friday afternoon, instead of having class as usual, we headed to the kitchen to make all sorts of wonderful things. The Latvians made potato salad with eggs, ham, peas, pickles, dill, and of course lots of potatoes. The Lithuanians made black bread that was excellent, despite their complaints of smelling like garlic for the rest of the day. I, along with my fellow Estonians, made an apple cake with a cinnamon sugar crumble. The Latvian teacher also brought candies for us to try. I don’t know what they are really called because we just referred to them as “cow candy” (the wrapper has a picture of a cow). The teachers all reminisced about having these carmel cream candies when they were kids. The cooking was lots of fun and the food was great. It definitely left me looking forward trying all sorts of new food when I am living in Estonia.

The other SLI picnics have been a lot of fun too. It is great to try food from different countries. We also usually end up playing music from the various cultures as well. I have brought my violin along and tried to learn Serbian, Bulgarian, and Turkish music. It is great to see people singing and dancing and having a good time.