The Meeting Melting Pot

One Bite at a Time

By Katja Morgenstern

 

Not only is food a large chunk of a conference budget, but it can also be an area of great risk. Any time you serve food to a group you risk food allergies or poisoning, complaints about the menu, dissatisfaction with the execution of dishes, poor presentation, terrible service, running out or having too much, lack of variety—and the list goes on.

Food plays several roles in our lives depending on personal beliefs, geography, economic status and religious backgrounds. Food preferences also vary from country to country, climate to climate and across cultures. For instance, south of the U.S. Mason-Dixon Line, ordering “tea” will get you a glass of sweetened iced tea. If you order tea in the northern U.S., you get regular, unsweetened iced tea.

Food choices in Northern and Southern Africa vary in everything from texture, flavor and cooking temperature to the time of day and frequency with which meals are served. If you have ever traveled to Italy and ordered a pizza, you know how different an Italian pizza is from an American-made pizza. In the U.S., the most popular pizza toppings are pepperoni, mushrooms and sausage. In Italy, eggs and tomato slices make the top of the list; in Costa Rica, coconut is the most popular.

Food plays a vital role in every meeting, and attendees expect their basic food needs to be met. This requires the planner to have an idea of each attendee’s needs. The easiest way to gather this information is from the registration form. Request (at the very minimum) to know if attendees prefer vegetarian, halal or kosher and if they have allergies.

This information, combined with where your attendees are coming from, will help you put together an event food profile for your conference. Once you have your event food profile and your budget, you can start to build your menus. I recommend working with your venue’s chef to create the most flavorful and substantial menus.

Here are some considerations.

  1. Serve meats on different dishes. Many diets restrict the consumption of food that has come into contact with other foods, so it is best to keep chicken, beef, seafood and pork on separate plates.
  2. If you need to eliminate a meat option, remove a pork product. Pork is more widely restricted based on cultural and religious beliefs.
  3. Provide non-alcoholic and caffeine-free beverages. Both alcohol and caffeine are considered harmful or taboo in some religious cultures.
  4. Provide kosher-style reception foods. For example, use Kobe beef in a puff pastry or a fish dish (finned, not bottom feeders and no shellfish). Unless these items come directly from a kosher kitchen, you cannot say they are kosher, but instead are kosher-style.
  5. Provide a starch other than ordinary potatoes or rice such as cassava (yuca), Israeli couscous, quinoa, glass noodles, somen noodles, wasabi mashed potatoes or papa criolla.
  6. Offer a European-style breakfast buffet, which could include boiled eggs, muesli, smoked salmon and bagels.
  7. Provide action stations with enough ingredients to include a broad spectrum of nutritional preferences. If you have a pasta station, include enough vegetables, sauces and protein choices to appeal to multiple dietary needs. Offer gluten-free pasta, spinach pasta or wheat pasta.
  8. Label each and every food item. This helps eliminate confusion and the stress to your attendees that can come from trying to navigate convention and conference foods.
  9. Offer Indian-style coffee, cappuccino, anise tea or masala chai tea as an alternate beverage option.
  10. Offer non-traditional appetizers to appeal to various cultures such as hummus, chick peas and olives, baba ghannouj, adas bil hamon (lentils with lemon juice), cucumber soup, cucumber salads and yogurt with eggplant, cucumber or dill.
  11. Provide a variety of breads including pita, ka’kat, English muffins, pumpernickel, rye or whole wheat (without honey).
  12. Offer something other than traditional desserts. Consider kulfi, figs in syrup, halva (contains almonds), baklava, date and nut sweets, cookies made with sesame, dates or pistachios and sorbets.
  13. Work with your venue to find out who they use to provide kosher and halal foods. Kosher and halal meal preparations have very specific religious specifications and cannot be prepared by just any chef.

Food and beverage options vary as much as your attendee base, and meal planning is an area that allows for a great deal of creativity with any budget. Attendees are happy to have their basic food needs met, but are delighted when they can experience new foods and take away something more than the typical conference bag.

Budget limitations, geographic location and length of program could limit your ability to create an experiential food event, but if you work with venue chefs and let them know your budget, they can almost always create something different and international. It sometimes helps to remember that to a chef, food is a form of art. Each artist wants to create something unique and lasting. Even if you cannot provide a full cross-cultural experience at every meal, I always recommend adding in at least one new item for people to try. Your attendees may surprise you. One+

KATJA MORGENSTERN is a senior project manager for Meeting Consultants Inc. She is an active MPI member, industry speaker and writer and has more than 11 years of experience spanning supplier and planner. She currently focuses on food and beverage and risk management within the industry and can be reached at kmorgenstern@meetingconsultants.com.