Taste the EU brought together thirty young people aged 16–25 from Austria, Spain and Türkiye for a seven-day Youth Exchange in Linz, using food as a vehicle for intercultural learning, sustainable nutrition education, and active European citizenship. The project responded to two trends our partner organisations had observed in their local communities. First, young people increasingly eat industrialised, standardised food while losing familiarity with the cooking traditions of their own families — a quiet erosion of cultural heritage that few youth programmes address directly. Second, the climate and food-waste crises are rarely connected, in youth education, to the practical kitchen skills that traditional cuisines have always carried: using the whole ingredient, cooking seasonally, eating less but better meat. We wanted to make that connection visible and useful.Our specific objectives were five. First, to give participants a working understanding of sustainable nutrition through hands-on workshops on seasonality, local sourcing, food-waste reduction and the environmental footprint of common ingredients. Second, to deepen intercultural competence by structuring the entire programme around shared cooking, eating and storytelling — recognising that the kitchen is one of the most honest spaces in which cultures meet. Third, to challenge stereotypes about each others' food cultures through dedicated non-formal methods such as the Stereotypical Food role-play and the Cine Food filmmaking workshop. Fourth, to ensure meaningful inclusion of participants from backgrounds with fewer opportunities — economic, cultural, social, educational and geographical — by designing the programme around peer-to-peer learning rather than language-heavy formal instruction. Fifth, to leave behind tangible outputs the participants and their communities could continue to use after the exchange: an intercultural recipe book, short films, artistic work and an active alumni network.Underpinning these objectives was a commitment to the founding values of the European Union — respect for diversity, solidarity, non-discrimination and active citizenship — which the partnership treated not as abstract principles but as concrete practices to be lived during the week in Linz.