Use the flavors of travel

Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” -James Beard, chef and food writer

By Liz Mitchell

The route to sweet memories is following the well-traveled path to local seasonal cuisine. Think about your memorable trips, whether family outings or group gatherings. Do you remember where you ate or something unique that was served? Of course, you remember at least one of the highlights, and sometimes you will recall an eatery or food choice for years. If returning to that destination, would you choose one of the same menus? Do you ever go back hoping to recreate just one terrific experience with a meal?

Let’s face it…you cannot plan any meeting or gathering without paying attention to the meals. Reunions and social events are often geared around the meals themselves, which provide the primary time for the attendees to enjoy personal interaction.

Every destination or venue has its own specialty, sometimes synonymous with the season, the local growers, manufacturers or producers, or maybe a chef who is noted for a contribution to the cuisine. When it’s a plentiful local product, hotel chefs and caterers will be happy to match your theme, or you can begin with their specialty menu items and create your theme accordingly. It also will be cost effective to use readily available ingredients.

Here’s a look at a few of the obvious cuisine and theme choices presented by popular group destinations, just to get you started:

Fishing for ideas
How about a trip to a Florida destination? Coastal cities are especially well known for fresh seafood, which varies with the seasons, while other sections of the state may be better remembered for their fruit and vegetable crops. It’s easy to use the special item and build the design of marketing materials and event titling around it.

Meeting for a rich, sweet experience
Chocolate invokes thoughts of a great little town in Pennsylvania. Hershey calls itself the sweetest place on earth, and you can use the famous kiss or any of its cousins in all of your event titles, the promotional art and, of course, the menu creations. Beans, cocoa, hot-to-go and many other terms invite a playful theme. You can use the confectionery of colors as well.

Spice up your life
Creole and Cajun flavors are predominant in New Orleans and neighboring parishes of southeastern Louisiana along the Gulf of Mexico. Your meeting theme can reflect hot and spicy or the wonderful mix of gumbo. Or it’s easy to single out one of the specific ingredients such as crawfish. Along with art and titles playing off the little critters sometimes called mudbugs, you certainly want to have a crawfish boil and a taste of crawfish with every meal. Agri-tours in Lafayette feature the history of the crawfish along with manufacturing of hot sauces and seasonings in this heart of the Cajun and Creole country.

Chef John Folse’s manufacturing plant tours in Baton Rouge showcase products used by caterers around the country and offer tastings. Ask for recipes available from his “Encyclopedia of Cajun and Creole Cuisine.” Magnolia Mound Plantation, also in the Baton Rouge parish, offers open-hearth cooking demonstrations. Seeing the authentic age-old process and then tasting the creations will lend a new touch to an event.

Shrimply delicious agenda
Gatherings along the South Carolina coast can easily feature shrimp during the fall season when it’s plentiful, and oysters during the winter when they are traditionally in season. Fresh vegetables may be chosen during the spring growing season with farm tours or picking excursions as featured elements or venues.

Food and wine festivals
Beyond centerpieces of local specialties, think of scheduling an event to coincide with a festival. Many destinations have set their festivals during an otherwise slow season when lodging is readily available or special packages are offered. Your meal planning or after hours free time could be arranged merely by placing your attendees at the site of an existing celebration. Your event won’t be forgotten when it’s tied to something larger, which is a newsmaker in itself.

Any of these event experiences will remain in recipe collections or kitchens along with memories that will bring participants back for another taste at your next event.

Liz Mitchell has years of experience with meeting and special event planning and loves to write about great people and places. She directed festivals and tourism marketing for the Beaufort (S.C.) Regional Chamber of Commerce for the past six years.