First-Rate Catering!
The Fátima Hotel and Tourism School, with its chefs and its students, put all their enthusiasm and skill into preparing the almost daily buffets. And for each buffet there were different dishes, including Portuguese specialities. Thus the delegations could take their meals in great comfort in the school’s multipurpose gymnasium, the only problem being the recurrent one of the lack of heating in the gymnasium, a difficult matter given the size of the gym.
The evening buffet on December 2nd
At the Coimbra Hotel School, of which AEHT Vice-President Ana Paula Pais is Director, another buffet awaited the participants during their excursion on Monday December 4th (see Tourism section). There again the School’s chefs as well as their students prepared a buffet that was both varied and excellent to regale the visitors who were enchanted by this particularly welcome gastronomic stopover.
In Coimbra, time for a very pleasurable lunch stop
The European buffets
As you might expect, the European buffets which are one of the three columns which support the concept of Christmas in Europe, took place in two waves. The first was on the evening of Monday December 4th (1) the second on the following day, December 5th (2). Fortunately the excursions had been scheduled for the mornings, so that the different delegations, helped by the EHF students and chefs, could carry out the preparations for these European buffets in the best possible conditions in the two afternoons.
Hard at work in the EHF kitchens for the European buffet 
Quick, quick, something’s missing! 
It’s hard to choose …
The various delegations were so keen to prepare, with great care and much skill, the dishes on offer – sometimes they had been brought from their country of origin with considerable trouble, and sometimes they were afraid that the ingredients they planned to use might not arrive in time. But according to certain sources, everything turned out fine.
This said, the guests at these two evening events made no secret of their pleasure at being able to choose at leisure from all the specialties offered for their delectation.
- The buffet on December 4th was prepared by the following delegations: Croatia (Pula), Armenia (Yerevan), Slovenia (Bled), Ukraine (Lviv), Italy (San Benedetto del Tronto), Estonia (Kuressaare), Italy (Cingoli), Sweden (Orebro), Portugal (Ponta Delgada) and Portugal (EPAV)
- The buffet on December 5th was prepared by the following delegations: Estonia (Tallinn), Slovenia (Maribor), Romania (Bucharest), Italy (ISS Vergani), Croatia (Bjelovar), Luxembourg (Diekirch), Austria (Bad Ischl), Sweden (Lund), Bulgaria (Sliven), Latvia (Riga), Portugal (Fátima).
