Taste of Havanna

A couple weeks ago I decided to attend a Spice Box dinner. These dinners are held in the spring semester and are the capstone course for hospitality management students at the  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Each student selects a theme and guest chef for which the meal is based. Students then prepare and serve the meal on campus. My lab-mate and I decided to attend a Cuban themed meal. 

The first course featured fried ham and dough with three delicious sauces.

The second course was beans and rice.

The third course was more than we could handle with a half-chicken, rice and plantains.

Dessert was caramel flan.

This was my first time dining in the Spice Box, but I have already planned to go back in a few weeks. This is a great project for students to learn how to prepare and manage a fine-dining event.

Photos courtesy of Catherine Metzgar!

Costa Rican Culinary Workshop

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a culinary workshop at K-State featuring a chef form Costa Rica. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect of Costa Rican cuisine except for fresh ingredients prepared in a simple tasteful way. That is exactly what I got, but the flavor was incredible

Before the lunch, we had a homemade salsa of sorts that included avocado, onion, red pepper, lime juice, lemon juice, and palm hearts. Palm hearts are the center part of young palm trees that are cooked down: they don't have strong flavor but take on the flavor of what they are paired with.

We had two lunches to showcase the different flavors and to take time to enjoy our food. Our first lunch is pictured above and included red snapper, rice and beans with onion and red pepper cooked in coconut milk, and pickled vegetables. I am not a bit fan or traditional coconut, it has a strong flavor for me. However, the coconut that was used to cook with was fresh and didn't have the strong flavor that American coconut does.

Between the two lunches, we had a blackberry sorbet. It was sweet and a nice fresh treat between the meals.

The second lunch (not pictured) was a sort of Costa Rican Sheapard's Pie. I say that because it was simple ingredients layered together and reminded me of the American dish. Rice was cooked with coconut milk, onion and red pepper was layered under chopped fresh green beans with onion and pepper. The next layer had marinated beef. The dish was topped with fried plantains. I had never had plantains: they completed the dish by providing a sweet crunchy flavor.

After the main portion of the workshop, we had a coffee tasting. I greatly enjoy coffee and it was neat to learn about the different origins of coffee. The one thing that I had never really payed attention to was the caffeine content of different roasts of coffee. The lighter roasts actually have more caffeine than dark roasts.

This was my first culinary workshop and I hope to take advantage of other opportunities like this in the future. I was able to attend the workshop because the registration fee was greatly decreased for students ($10 for the whole day) so they could learn from the experience.

I encourage students to seize opportunities like this whenever possible. It's a great way to meet new people and learn about other cultures.

China in New Mexico

My freshman year of college I had the opportunity to participate in a service learning trip over Spring Break. The trip was to Taos, NM a small mountainous community in the north-west part of the state. Not only was I able to learn a great deal about the culture of Taos, but I was also able to learn about China because there were three students from China on our team. 

One evening the three students asked everyone to come to their culture. They had even made a meal for us. I was so surprised at how different their foods are from the Americanized version of Chinese foods. Their dishes were simple most from broths with lots of vegetables (cucumber, cabbage, and other greens mainly). There was little meat in the dishes and they said that one of the dishes would have a whole chicken for the family to eat from, unfortunately, we only had breast cuts of chicken.

All in all, we were able to learn a lot about the culture of China and the simplicity of their dishes.

A Dash of Culture

I greatly appreciate the link between food and culture, but more importantly how that link is different for each culture. Most notably, I have realized that the link between food and culture is one many Americans take advantage of. As a sophomore in the college of agriculture (my former home), I had the opportunity to travel to Tuscany to learn about food production. This truly was a dream come true! I was going to spend 8 days in ITALY learning about food and culture…oh and eating!

As part of the class, we met weekly and researched history and production of the foods we would be seeing, this research was compiled into a presentation for the rest of the class (16 in all) to learn! We also had weekly Italian quizzes, something I wish I would have taken more seriously.

After a day of travel, we landed in Milan, where we would spend a day before heading to Florence. Florence was our base and from there we went out to see various producers including: parmigiano reggiano cheese, balsamic vinegar, parma hams, gelato, chocolate, and numerous vineyards. We attended two cooking schools in Florence; both were amazing but offered a different perspective on cooking. The first was very serious and professional while the second was much more laid back. While attending the second cooking school, we went to the market. The market gave me a great insight into the culture of Italy. There were fruits, vegetables, baked goods, seafood, and cuts of meat that I had never seen before. The seafood part wasn’t too surprising; I did grow up in Kansas after all!

What I really learned from the trips to the market (we also visited one in Venice), was food is a central part of Italian livelihood. In the US, few individuals sell things they grew or caught themselves. In addition, meals are eaten on the run and not enjoyed as they are in other countries. One of our meals lasted 3 hours, not because we ate that much, but because we were in conversation with one another and enjoying the atmosphere we were in!

        My experience in traveling to Italy was the trip of a lifetime. I was able to learn so much and eat so many wonderful foods! I cannot wait for my next adventure abroad! Please feel free to share comments on places to see and foods to try!