Hats off to Bon Appetit for a very successful Real Food Challenge! This past week, Hamilton’s food service provider set out to bring awareness about our local food sources. The company does its best to work with local farms to bring in fresh, seasonal produce and meat. This past beautiful fall week, Bon Appetit held daily events to give everyone a taste of the farm fresh specialties.
By far the biggest event of the week was the Eat Local Challenge campus wide picnic that was held on the McEwen Courtyard. Set up with a very fitting harvest theme, students came from all corners of campus to take part in tasting some of Central New York’s yummiest dishes. They were treated to salt potatoes, honeyed raspberries, apple sauce, Sun Gold tomatoes, roast pork loin, grilled garlic chicken, acorn squash, apples, fresh apple cider and grape juice. All of the food came from local providers within 150 miles of the campus like North Star Orchards, Lucky Seven Farms, Evans Farmhouse Creamery, Mandeville Farms, Finger Lakes Fresh, Benton Berry Farms, Howlands Apiary, Bakers Acres, and even the Hamilton College Community Garden.
Reviews of the event itself were mixed. It is undeniable that lines were long as this was the only lunchtime option (besides Opus, of course). Students with a restricted amount of time between classes felt stressed. Some skipped lunch all together while others just ran to grab an apple and left. But for those who had a more leisurely lunch schedule, the event got two thumbs up. The food was noted as delicious by all and was appreciated as great locally sourced meal by the environmentally conscious students of Hamilton. Such events thrown by Bon Appetit are always an exciting event and bring the Hamilton community together, this time surrounding an important message regarding eating locally during a beautiful season where all can appreciate all of the bounty upstate New York has to offer.