Guest Speaker Lecture

In your assignment take a concept or idea from the guest lecturer and define how that concept or idea is relevant to your growth as a good clean and fair chef.

Mark Trealout & Mario Pingue

Hearing Mark Trealout talk about his farm and the love and passion that goes into the production and growth of his vegetables is incredible. Hearing how much time and love that goes into it makes me want to purchase his products and take part in it. If I owned a restaurant I would purchase my produce from him knowing it came from a place where the gardeners love what they do. The sheer amount of time to wake up early and be on your knees or hands and feet and thinking about the nutrient level in the soil is not something I myself would see myself doing. It seems like a lot of tedious work and back pains. Hearing Mark talk made me be more consciencious about food waste and keeping it to a minimum. Whether it is taking an apple or even a red pepper and using as much of it as possible. Ideally, someone out there planted it and took the time to grow it and tend to it. That vegetable deserves the same amount of attention required as it does to prepare a piece of meat. There is a lot of time and dedication that goes into it. Even though his products are a bit more expensive than you would find at a Metro, it is worth it. IT is worth paying the extra price to get something that is made local, to be able to get something that actually tastes good and is in season, to be able to meet the person that actually grew it themselves!

Mario Pingue I was very interested in hearing talk. I myself make my own sausages and cured meats during the winter months and I like to see what other products are on the market that are considered  some of the best and seeing how I can improve my meats to get to that level. I knew of Niagara specialty foods because the previous restaurant I used to work at, Gusto 101 they order a lot of their cured meats from them  and I knew their dried salamis were really quite something. I always considered Niagara specialty foods expensive but it wasn't until Mario started talking about the costs and expenses that I really understood and saw a different side of their business. Even though their meats are expensive, the pigs are raised in a humane environment, they care about how the pig is treated throughout  the whole process. He used the comparison of how much a package of hot dog is and what percentage of meat is actually in the hot dog and how even though there is a small percentage of meat, it's the bad parts of the animal that no one wants or can sell so they grind it small and place it in with a lot of fillers. His products are all naturally raised and used the traditional Italian way of curing meat. Since they have the proper procedures and methods of doing it well, restaurants can serve these products proudly knowing it is all done naturally.