Sunday Brunch: The Final
Scoop on Food and Wine
Nov 20th,
2011
I'm sure many have heard the old
English Proverb that 'all good things must come
to an end' and it looks like that day is today.
The Epcot International Food and Wine Festival
is most definitely one of the highlights of my
time here living, playing, and working at Walt
Disney World, and it saddens me to see it come
to an end. While walking through Epcot last
Friday, it was alarmingly empty with all the
booths gone despite the crowds of people. There
are still some remnants of the festival with
some seating areas created for specific
marketplaces still standing though with either a
random caramelized nut wagon or nothing in the
spot of its kiosk. Still, the olde English were
right and it would've been too much of a good
thing if the festival did not end, and I hope
that I may be lucky enough to be around in
Disney World for the next festival to experience
everything I missed and try the new things they
have to offer.
With lamenting aside, we take
one final look back at the festival. While I
have no particular order in which to discuss the
last few items I sampled, we can start with one
with an interesting back story. The Caribbean
marketplace was new this year and while many
elected to sample the expected Caribbean jerk
spiced chicken, I found the country's other food
offering, Ropa Vieja, enjoyable and reminiscent
of home. Ropa Vieja translates into 'old
clothes' in Spanish, and is a popular dish in
the Caribbean as well as other Spanish speaking
countries of the world. It was named after a
story about a poor man whose family comes to
visit, but he has no food to feed them. He grabs
old clothes from his closet and cooks them with
all the love he can give for his family and his
love causes it to magically become a beef stew.
Epcot's Ropa
Vieja was a shredded beef slowly braised in a
tomato based broth. It was served with white
rice, which soaked in some of the juices from
the stew. While the story is sweet and the stew
was good, I found the dish the least exciting
out of all of the festival. I still really
enjoyed it, but mostly because it reminded me of
a lot of a beef stew called Machado that my dad
makes at home for all of our family gatherings.
The beef tasted very similar to Machado and was
even served with white rice like I normally eat
it. It was great to get a taste of home at
Disney World, though for Epcot's festival of
flavors, it was least exciting since it's
something I've had often before.
Next we head to Italy, a country
I was cautious to sample as I've had a lot of
great Italian food, having grown up between
Philadelphia and New York, both cities and its
surrounding suburbs having a large population of
Italian immigrants and their descendants. One
will dine well in both cities and random places
in between since authentic Italian food is quite
a staple cuisine. My one roommate Tasso, also
from this area, joked about how he had some
great 'Chef Boyardee' at Italy's Food and Wine
marketplace.
When I went to try it for
myself, I sampled the Ravioli di formaggio
all'Emiliana. In my passport, it is explained as
baked cheese ravioli with creamy beef Bolognese,
Parmesan, and Mozzarella. I love cheese, so I
enjoyed it for that factor, but I found it was
not too awful nor amazing. 'Chef Boyardee' was
not found in our cupboard very often in my house
growing up, so I have little to compare to, but
overall it wasn't anything I haven't tasted
before. It was served hot and fresh and smelled
divine as any cheese will do for any dish. The
sample was a nice portion size, definitely one
of the more filling of the samples at the
festival. Still, with such wonderful offerings
from the chefs at Via Napoli and Tutto Italia in
the main restaurants behind this little kiosk,
the ravioli could've been a little better.
Next we'll take a detour to the
Pacific and head back to Hawai'I for the Tuna
Poke. The Tuna Poke looked really amazing as far
as presentation, as little cubes of raw tuna sat
on a bed of a vibrant green seaweed salad with a
crunchy lotus root chip on top. The components
all made for an adventurous blend of textures
and tastes, with crunch and cold and tender
protein. Many may not be too crazy about raw
fish, but fans of sushi and other Asian
influenced cuisines would like the Tuna Poke.
This was something totally new to me and I was
intrigued by the flavors and what it had to
offer. It tasted like Tuna with a touch of soy
sauce. The seaweed salad had some sort of citrus
dressing. I ate it wrong though in that I had
most of the tuna first and the seaweed last. I
should've been more even in my distribution of
components, but still I enjoyed it for the
novelty of something almost completely foreign
to my palate.
Next we'll head back towards the
Mediterranean area for a Kefta Pocket in
Morocco. This food garnered a lot of buzz among
Food and Wine guests and it sounded really good:
ground seasoned beef in Pita Bread. And that's
exactly what it was, plain and simple as the
description. Not that I'm complaining or
anything, but I could easily see this as the
Moroccan equivalent of a hamburger, and who
doesn't like hamburgers? Garnished with some
lettuce and onion, the Kefta pocket was a great
size for a sample. The 'patty' of meat was a bit
oddly shaped and I wish they made them flatter
to better accommodate an equal pita bread to
beef ratio.
The final scoop at Food and Wine
is at the beloved Canada marketplace for a Maple
and Moosehead Beer-glazed Salmon with Barley
Salad. First the salmon: it was warm with a
heavy maple glaze flavor on the outer layers of
the fish, though I was surprised I could not
taste the beer. My taste buds were searching for
it as I thought it would be a turn-off, but I
guess either Moosehead Beer also tastes like
maple syrup (which would not be surprising
considering this is Canada) or I got lucky and
got more maple than bear when this fish was
seared. Probably some of the best salmon I've
had in life and I hope to get the chance again
to have such delicious fish. The biggest
surprise though was the barley salad. Barley is
a type of grain and acted as the starchy
component of the dish. Soft and served cold, it
also held in some of the juices from the salmon
and maple beer glaze. The cold barley salad was
a terrific compliment to the warm salmon sitting
on top, making the entire dish a delicious
conclusion to a great food festival.

This article was especially
difficult to write because now that I've made
myself hungry, I no longer have the ability to
hop on over to Epcot to try everything again. To
lift mine and those of the spirits reading at
home, I leave you with one of my favorite
moments of Food and Wine:

At the Festival Center''Okay, I'm ready, show me
to the register.'
Mr. Paycheck said I could only
pick one. So I picked the best one and he's been
on adventures ever since!
Though the marketplaces may be
gone and the delicious food only remains a happy
memory in my mind, I am proud to say I found a
new friend at Food and Wine who will be here to
stay, even with the festival over. Chef Duffy is
my new buddy, my new companion, but mostly a
little bear who bears the task of being a
remembrance of the delicious and magical moments
I had at the 16th Annual Epcot
International Food and Wine Festival.