About the home town of the green gold
Wine & pumpkin seed oil
The stage from Bad Radkersburg to Deutschlandsberg, represents the home town of the famous Styrian pumpkin seed oil whilst leasurely passing by colorful pumpkin fields and idyllic oil mills.
One of those oil mills belongs to Thomas Hartlieb, whose pumpkin seed oil advanced to being an ambassador for culinary delights in Styria. Numerous yellowish red to green speckled pumpkins are lightning up the extensive fields in autumn until the harvest season begins. Interesting fact: Some pumpkin sorts such as the Cucurbita-pumpkin are still cored by the farmers immediately at the field.
After completion of the Styrian coring process, the pumpkins are further processed into the popular pumpkin seed oil. The history of pumpkin seed oil has its roots in 1735. Back then thickly skinned seeds were used for the production of the oil. Nowadays, a variety of seeds without skin, that was cultivated through the selection of mutations, is being used. Until the 1970es, the prominence within Austria did not exceed Styrian borders. Only in the 1980es the pumpkin seed oil started its unstoppable victory march within small as well as big kitchens in Austrian and in countries spread all over the world.
The GenussCard, the complimentary ticket for more than 280 excursion destinations spread all over Eastern Styria, the Region Spa Country Styria with its thermal spas and volcanoes up to Southern Styria and the Region Graz, allows a glimpse behind the scenes and entrance gates of various factories such as oil mills.