Oranges, blueberries, peanuts, corn and the purple sweet potato are just a few of Florida’s delicious agricultural commodities featured in the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences tasting showcase. “Flavors of Florida” is held in March at the Champions Club in UF’s Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
“This is one of my favorite UF events,” said UF Public Relations Specialist Kirsten Romaguera. “It used to be an every-other-year event, but it’s become so popular that it’s taking place annually now.”
Chef-curated tastings were in abundance at this incredible sampling event. Fresh Florida ingredients were donated from Roth Farms and Vert Nature Farms in Belle Glade, Fancy Farms in Lakeland, Blue Sky Farms in Elkton and Wild Goose Farms in Umatilla. While the oranges, blueberries and corn came from the university’s various produce breeding programs.
With over 400 attendees, the popular event raised $11,450 for the UF Field and Fork program. A portion of each ticket sale went towards the UF cause that benefits a core campus community.
UF Field and Fork is an impactful program on campus that benefits the entire community. It is a farm and a garden, led by the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, that doubles as a food pantry. The program helps students connect classroom learning with hands-on experience in small farm production. This provides fresh, seasonal produce to the Alan and Cathy Hitchcock Field & Fork Pantry, a free resource that supports those in the campus community experiencing food insecurity.
“It puts the food where they are,” Romaguera said.
“This is a fun event that local chefs and catering companies love participating in. We have several that have come back year after year. They appreciate the event’s mission and the opportunity to create dishes that are outside the box.”
Guests sampled newly released blueberry variations from the UF/IFAS Blueberry Breeding Program, including the Colossus, Kestrel, Sentinel and brand-new Albus varieties.
UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center faculty and students traveled from Lake Alfred to offer samples of developed citrus varieties. “We had several samplings of orange juice, each unique and delicious,” said Romaguera.
Finally, the UF/IFAS Food Science and Human Nutrition Department served up recipes for donuts, sourdough bread, vichyssoise and candy created by the department’s food scientists, using the vibrant purple sweet potato –– an emerging crop in Florida. The department created a recipe guide for the purple sweet potato. The popular, vivid vegetable was highlighted in several tasty dishes, such as the purple sweet potato and carrot blondie.
At the end of the night, the Taster’s Choice Award went to Palm & Pine Catering for its delectable variety of potstickers.
UF invited the farmers that produced several of the crops used for cooking the different samplings to the event, providing local farmers a fantastic opportunity to taste their own crops in several different kinds of dishes.
The UF Flavors of Florida’s overall mission is to raise awareness of where your local food comes from, while raising money for a great cause.
