“It’s actually a pretty basic concept of just getting different countries to represent themselves”, Isidoros Kotinis says, master student Industrial Design and co-organizer of the event. At the start of the event visitors received a passport with all participating countries. “We want to make people visit all different countries. If you try the food or play the games at a stand you get a stamp. And if you get all stamps you have a chance to win a prize,” he explains.

Missing cultures 

This year's 'world map' of the event included Japan, China, Taiwan, India, the United Arab Emirates, the Caribbean, Brazil, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, and of course, the Netherlands.

Not all cultures present at the university had a market stand. According to the organization, every year it becomes harder to find volunteers to cook and staff the stands. "We lost Spain and Italy, unfortunately," Kotinis indicated. "But, China is participating for the first time this year. We are very happy about that."

Word, dish, habit

Despite the gaps in the world map, there was a lot of pushing and pulling in Auditorium because - just like last year - it was packed with hungry visitors. To also learn something besides just eating food, Cursor went around the stands asking for the most important word, the tastiest dish and the most interesting habit from the country in question. Watch the answers in the video below.