By Abby Kozal, Culture Editor
Map detailing Aquinas’s global students home countries – Photo by Abby Kozal
Aquinas College held their annual Global Food Festival on Wednesday, March 26. The event was a collaboration between the Office of International Studies, the Multicultural Club and Aquinas Dining. Other clubs, such as the K-Pop Dance Group and the Latinx Student Association (LXSA), also helped in making the event possible. From 4-6p.m., attendees gathered in the Wege Ballroom to enjoy food from various countries made by members of the Aquinas community.
Dishes from 17 different countries were shared. Tables and flags lined the walls representing each dish’s country of origin. Meals ranged from potato-based Irish recipes to elote from Latin America.
Garland of flags from various countries hanging over Wege Ballroom – Photo by Abby Kozal
Laura Standel, a senior at Aquinas, shared a meat dish from Kyrgyzstan called Shashlik. It’s made with beef and onion cooked over a charcoal grill. Standel is also the secretary of the Multicultural Club E-Board. She has traveled to many different countries around the world.
“I lived in Kyrgyzstan for a year after high school,” Standel said. “I was eighteen, and I went there after I graduated.”
The Wege Ballroom was packed with members of the AQ community once the event had started. Some people reported that attendance was in the hundreds at the beginning of the festival. By 5 p.m., many of the dishes had run out, such as Haris Sendijaveric’s balkan wafer dessert.
Haris Sendijaveric prepping from Global Food Festival – Photo by @aqinternationaloffice on Instagram
“I particularly enjoyed the Korean soup, but mainly it was so cool to see how many different kinds of dishes there were and how it brought so many people together,” said junior Sawyer Shank.
“I loved being able to see all the different countries’ foods,” said sophomore Emilina Iacobelli. “It was a great way to learn about what is common for people of different nationalities to eat.”
The Saint 