Sharing a longstanding passion for fresh, natural foodsan interest now sweeping across professional and home kitchens nationwideexecutive chef
Fred Mensinga of the Hilton Anaheim last month introduced Eat Naturally, a program offering banquet menus with fresh, local, organic, and sustainable food and beverage choices.
In fact, Hilton Hotels tapped the widely respected Mensinga to spearhead the program not just at his hotel but at Hilton's seven other area properties.
Leading a charge is nothing new for Mensinga though. He launched a culinary trade magazine 18 years ago and served at the helm of a professional chefs organization for eight years. Mensinga stopped slicing and dicing while he explained his inner revolutionary to MeetingNews.
Q Why do you feel that fresh, natural food is so important?
A Everything we eat these days is processed. Stores use chemicals to make fruit look nice, and meat is hormone injected. This trend of natural food had been out there, and I was researching things like fish farming processes when our area vice president suggested we create a banquet menu with products from local farmers using sustainable techniques.
Q But this is only available for meetings and events. Why did you start with that customer base?
A The hotel had already gone green, and Joseph Kruvi, the area vice president, thought this would be interesting for the banquet menu.
Q What are some examples of dishes that groups can find at participating hotels?
A At breakfast, there are organic eggs, fair trade coffee, trans fat-free Danish pastries, a berry tart using local berries, as well as almonds for the cream filling. For lunch, there's an heirloom tomato salad, a free-range chicken breast with organic spinach and tarragon sauce, as well as seasonal California fresh vegetables-to name a few dishes.
The list goes on and on.
Q How has planner response been?
A Our catering sales staff is reporting great interest. Customers have been bringing us menus and asking to make them organic. [Editor's Note: Mensinga advised meeting planners against using this term as it doesn't have a universal definition. He suggests discussing "natural" food options with chefs.]
However, we don't know if people will do this because it costs 30 to 40 percent more than standard banquets.
Q Why is Eat Naturally more expensive?
A Fresh produce can be tough to come by. If, for example, we need organic string beans for 2,000 people and there's not enough available from one farm, we may have to go to several sources.
Q Are there any other disadvantages to going fresh?
A We can't say months out what will be available, so we have to tell the planner close to the event.
Q You served for eight years as president and chairman of Les Toques Blanches International, a prestigious professional chefs society. How could you volunteer so much of your time?
A For me, it's important to be in a chefs organization to guide young people in the right direction, and for networking. My network of chefs goes around the world, and that's helpful when I'm looking for a sous chef, or just qualified people.
Q Why are you involved in the magazine publishing business?
A It allows me to travel to different hotels, see new things, and the chefs have to give me recipes. It's important for me to go see what's going on. I'm always looking for something new; that keeps everyone going. I also get that from a student exchange program. We bring students in for 12 months, and they work all our stations; this year, I have students from Korea, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Q Do you capitalize on their varied ethnic backgrounds?
A Absolutely. I create chef's tables and the students cook a four- or five-course menu for a group. It's a great tool for meeting planners to have fun with.
Q What's your favorite food?
A I like everything, and I'm open to try things. When I visit chef friends, we have several small courses so that we can taste a variety of food without getting stuffed. What's important is to try different things and to feel good afterwards.
Contact Rayna Katz at [email protected]
Originally published February 25, 2008