Ken Toong

Simple Food, Healthy Eating

Welcome!

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will proudly host the 17th annual Tastes of the World Chef Culinary Conference, on June 12-17, 2011.

We will celebrate our 17th year, by inviting many top-notch presenters and welcoming back some of the best past speakers. Our theme this year: Simple Food, Healthy Eating, will focus on many simple (less processed, uncomplicated to prepare) healthier dishes with a plenty of flavor and a reverence for incorporating locally produced, seasonal foods.

The mantra of Alice Waters: eat locally and sustainably; eat seasonally; shop at farmers markets; all sounds good to us. How can we apply this to volume food services like ourselves? Our customers are looking for simple and healthy foods that taste good and are good for them. We want to reduce the processing of food from the farms to our tables, and we want to reduce the steps of production while maintaining consistency in our volume cooking. After all, we want to make food that is simple to prepare, simple to cook, simple to serve and most of all, simply delicious.

Our customers' preference is ever evolving, just like the theme of the conference, from street food, and home cooking, to simple food - welcome to the rustic movement. Explore with us, simple foods and recipes from regions of America, Latin America, the Mediterranean Region and Southeast/Northeast Asia in this conference.

As always, we will be expecting an impressive entourage of experts, as well as some of the finest members of Johnson and Wales University and The Culinary Institute of America, who will share their knowledge and oversee many workshop sessions and demonstrations. Similar to last year, there will be presentations and workshops on both Monday and Tuesday

Please visit this site often as it will be updated regularly. Mark your calendar and plan to register early, as many of the events become "sold out" as the conference approaches.

Sincerely,

Ken Toong

Ken Toong
Executive Director and Chair
ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu