For many years in the United States, the IFYE program has been supported by the 4-H association. 4-H is a program for youth that encourages learning and development in many different areas. Arts and crafts, photography, food science and nutrition, public speaking, crops, livestock showing, judging; the list goes on and on with different areas one can get involved in with 4-H. The tradition of learning about agriculture in 4-H then was inherited into the IFYE program when it became funded by 4-H. The goal of the participants in the exchange were to travel to different countries, stay with host families that also worked in agriculture, and exchange ideas to improve the process of production. Today IFYE is an independent organization, so it is not required for participants to come from farming backgrounds. But with the history of 4-H ties, and that in other countries IFYE is part of a larger rural youth program (like 4-H), it is still common for host families and IFYEs to work in agriculture. Even if the IFYE doesn’t come from a farming background, they might be paired with a family that does farm. Getting to stay, helping out, and learning about the host family’s farm brings a new aspect to the cultural exchange. Learning about agriculture is something that is important for everyone, not just people that work on farm. Agriculture teaches you many things including, knowing where food comes from, the process of obtaining that product, and the impact production has on your heath & the environment. Connecting the dots between freshly planted seeds to food on your plate makes you aware of how important agriculture is. Once you are aware of this, you also become more responsible with your consumption. This was something that I re-learned while staying with my host family on their farm.
Making Marillenknödel
One afternoon for lunch, my host mom planned to prepare a traditional Austrian meal, marillenknödel (apricot dumplings). For this amazing dish we only needed eight ingredients. We made the dough for the dumplings from scratch with topfen (a thickened sour cream cheese). We prepared the dumplings with apricots then boiled them over the wood stove. The final product was a delicious sweet meal. I was amazed that something so delicious could be prepared by such few things. I was also in awe of how quick and simple it was to prepare everything from scratch. In the U.S. we have gotten used to fast food and preparing meals from pre-made supermarket foods, that it seems like making something from scratch would take forever but really it doesn’t take so much longer to prepare - plus taste so much better! Also for lunch we would always prepare a soup. One day we had a side of steamed broccoli that was freshly cut from the garden. I was helping my host mom prepare all the food by chopping the head of the broccoli. When I was done, I asked her if I should put the broccoli stalks in the composed bin and she told me no. We were going to save the stalks for a soup another day. I was taken back by this because I knew that it was an edible part of the vegetable but yet is often thrown out in American cooking. I was excited to try this soup because the others that we had made before were all so good with just four-five ingredients. The broccoli soup ended up being so tasty. I have learned so many things about agriculture here in Austria but two things I learned in the kitchen were - one, you don’t need a lot of ingredients or pre-made foods to make a delicious meal, and two, many foods can be made into many different meals you just have to know how to use it.
One of many delicious soups we made