The harvest season is in full swing, and you're invited to celebrate with a meal of regional cuisine at the University of Minnesota, Morris on Thursday, October 24th.
The Pride of the Prairie Fall Feast will feature home grown food and music in a community celebration. For the feast, Chris Serio, executive chef for UMMs food service provider, Sodexho Campus Services, will use his creativity to prepare locally produced foods. The menu includes rosemary roasted pork with apple bread dressing and honey glazed carrots, autumn harvest sauté over whole wheat cous-cous, curried stuffed acorn squash, vegetarian chili and cornbread, beef wieners, grilled cheese on hearty bread, hand-cut fried potatoes, apple crisp with ice cream and apple cider.
Entertainment for the celebration will be provided by the folk music duo of Carol Ford and Colleen Frey. Ford and Frey are acclaimed musicians who have toured the Midwest, while also working day jobs at UMM. Also performing will be the group Hang Down, featuring several UMM students.
The event is designed to promote and celebrate the agricultural bounty of west central Minnesota and to reconnect people with their food and with the farmers who grow it. UMM Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and a Pride of the Prairie committee member, Sandy Olson-Loy, hopes that locally grown foods will become a regular part of the menu at UMM. The University of Minnesota, Morris, is an eager partner in the Pride of the Prairie local food initiative, says Olson-Loy, As a campus of over 2,250 students, faculty and staff, we value our connections to our prairie home. We are working to deepen our roots and connections to our region as we also gain increasing national recognition as a leading public liberal arts college.=94
Olson-Loy says there are many good reasons to serve locally-grown food, including fresher and tastier products. It is also good for the local economy--buying directly from family farmers returns a larger portion of our food dollars directly to the farmer and helps them stay in business. It is estimated that food on US dinner plates travels an average of 2000 miles. In contrast, the foods featured in the campus dinner will have traveled less than 80 miles.
Donna Bauck, general manager for the campus food service, agrees that there are benefits to buying locally, and says, "I would much prefer to buy products as close as I can."
In order to reestablish a local food system in Western Minnesota, it was necessary to glean information from the groups involved in producing, preparing, and buying food. The Land Stewardship Project, a non-profit organization which fosters an ethic of stewardship for farmland and promotes sustainable agriculture and communities, initiated a series of surveys.
UMM junior Anne Borgendale contacted processors, consumers, and producers, identifying local farmers between Alexandria and Marshall, MN, who sell the goods they produce directly to consumers. She obtained information about their produce and distribution. After compiling the survey information, Borgendale stated that the overall attitude of the farmers was positive in regards to their choice of abstaining from large-scale farming. Farmers said that water quality, biodiversity, wildlife habitat and support of the local economy were all important to them in the way they make decisions about their farming practices. Fourteen local producers are supplying foods for the Fall Feast.
The Pride of the Prairie Fall Feast will be served from 4:45 to 6:30 p.m in the UMM Food Services Building, on East 2nd Street, across the street from the Regional Fitness Center. Free parking is available in all campus parking lots. Guides will be available to direct guests parking in the South or East Parking lots off 2nd Street. Tickets for the event are $10 for adults, $6 for off-campus students and children, and ages 5 and under eat free. For tickets, call the West Central Research and Outreach Center at (320) 589-1711 or 1-866-589-1711 toll free. Tickets will also be on sale the week of the event in the UMM Student Center (11:30am to 1:30pm), at the Pomme de Terre Food Coop in Morris, and at the door. UMM students who live on campus will enjoy the meal using their regular meal plan.
The Pride of the Prairie Fall Feast menu was created by Sodexho Campus Services. This event is made possible thanks to the University of Minnesota, Morris Foodies (Sodexho Campus Services and a group of student, faculty and staff including the Office of Grants Development, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, and Student Activities), Pomme de Terre Foods, Prairie Renaissance Cultural Alliance, Campus Activities Council, West Central Research and Outreach Center, Pride of the Prairie partners - led by the Land Stewardship Project, and the farmers of the Upper Minnesota River basin. The University of Minnesota, Morris Campus Activities Council and the Prairie Renaissance Cultural Alliance are sponsoring the musical entertainment for this event.
For more information, contact Sandy Olson-Loy at (320) 589-6013
Sue Dieter University Relations 11 Education, 600 East 4th Street Morris, MN 56267 (320) 589-6050
" Persistence is the hard work you do after you've finished doing the hard work you already did."
Author unknown
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Last Modified Tuesday, February 01, 2005
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