On Saturday, October 3rd, Darden celebrated its annual International Food Festival. This event was sponsored by a variety of international and food-focused clubs, with support as well from MeadWestVaco and the Tayloe Murphy Center. For only a $20 entry fee, this event featured international recipes, exciting performances, national costumes, and decorative food stations from over 15 countries.Brazil and Texas won the Best Food award of the night. Led by team members Adriano and Christiana Maesano, Sergio Braga, and Maria Martha Scaglioni, Brazil served up risotto, brigadeiro, and passionfruit mousse. Texas served many tex-mex dishes, but the big favorite of
this team was Matt Innamorati’s carnivore-friendly rubbed ribs. The rub recipe was a concoction of mustard, white and brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, paprika, and chili powder. After soaking the ribs in this rub for 15 hours, the Texas team cooked 21 racks of spare ribs for almost six hours in nine different ovens around Charlottesville. They were then finished off for an hour on an industrial-sized charcoal grill.“This was a huge team effort,” said Texas team member Josh Burke, “ Huge kudos goes to Carlos Camacho (D’11) for finding ovens. Kudos also to Matt Gunther and Jesse Nisselson for helping rub. And finally, kudos to Matt Innamorati for cutting 350 ribs and serving them with the charm one expects of a Section C’er.”
India and Pakistan took home awards for best booth decoration while Japan won for best costumes. The night ended with stunning performances. Africa (note, Africa is not a country) and Korea captured the coveted best performances award, with FY Amira Barakat performing a fabulous belly dance routine and Korea performing Tae Kwon Do moves, including crowd-pleaser black belt FY Jimmy Hicks busting through two blocks of wood. The performances also included a Slumdog Millionaire rendition from India, serenades from Italy, sumo wrestling from Japan, and a fashion performance from China. The event ended with an intimate Argentinean zamba from Maria Dodds, wife of FY Santiago Silveyra.The event was a huge success with no injuries, rain, or bad food, and all left with happy bellies.
