Campus Auxiliary Services’ chefs and managers spiced up student cuisine with World Barbecue Night at Food Studio North on Thursday April 23. Grilled entrées were made for every station. The biggest successes of the night were the savory beef brisket, smoked chicken drums with mango habanero barbecue sauce and barbecue baked beans at the Chef’s Table.
“The chefs wanted to have something new and fun for the students and barbeque is always a big hit,” CAS Director of Culinary and Executive Chef Jonna Anne said. “The chefs tied in all of the global influences that are brought forth at all of the different stations at FSN.”
When FSN was created earlier in the school year, CAS organized sections where food represented different regions of the world. “CAS made a poignant decision to do that. All of our stations have a different flair from around the world,” Anne said. “That’s because our students’ tastes are eclectic from all over.”
The idea behind World Barbecue Night was to bring a special event to the FSN calendar and to get students excited about new food while also highlighting flavors from various cultures. “We like to bring teaching outside of the classroom to learn how food tastes from other areas,” Anne said.
Students flooded into FSN, grabbing second and even third helpings of the delicious food. It was an evening that ended up with double the amount of average customers. “We had 610 people go through FSN and most of the comments I heard were that students really enjoyed it,” CAS Assistant General Manager Toni Marini said. “When I asked students about the food that night, they told me they especially enjoyed the brisket and the smoked chicken.”
CAS invited members of the Gneseo community to perform for students at FSN. During the first half of the evening, freshman Simone Louie and sophomore Tiphereth Hassan performed a duo, while professor of biology and Guitar Club advisor Greg Hartvigsen played solo guitar for the second half of the night.
In preparation for the night, the chefs of FSN created their own recipes to showcase. “I believe they reached out to our cooks and asked what some of the things that they enjoyed were and used that to work together as a culinary team with a focus on each station,” Anne said.
Other special events like World Barbecue Night are in the works for the fall semester. Anne hopes that Geneseo students will remain engaged in these events.
“One thing World Barbecue Night showcased to the Geneseo community is what we’re trying to do here at Food Studio North,” Anne said.