October is National Farm to School Month, and this year, September 28th was Iowa Local Food Day. The day was designated in 2018 to honor local growers and bring local foods into the schools. The University of Northern Iowa participated in a big way this year with 4 new to the menu main dishes, two local desserts, and several local side dishes.
Planning for the event started early! We started testing recipes Mid-August and started selecting local ingredients before that. We knew we wanted to incorporate familiar foods in a different way to get the students and the staff excited about trying something new. By looking through the list of local foods from our distributers, we were able to select ingredients that we wanted to highlight. A few of the standouts included dry beans, eggs, pork, and of course, corn! After some research and quite a bit of testing, we landed on our favorites.
We also needed to decide what “local” meant to us. The day is called Iowa Local Food Day, so we wanted to feature as many Iowa products as possible. However, we also knew that we wanted to be able to elevate the dishes in a way that our customers would love, and that we might need to include foods even if they weren’t from the state of Iowa. The dining centers have been using these designations for a while, and we made them official for the day: Hyperlocal meaning foods from Black Hawk or the 7 surrounding counties; foods that came from within the State of Iowa; and foods that traveled 250 miles or less to get to us. We also made room for a few Sustainably Sourced items. Almost all of our local items came from the Iowa Food Hub based out of Decorah, IA, Martin Brother’s Distributing in Cedar Falls, and straight from the source – we personally visited the College Hill Farmers Market and We Arose Co-op as well as the Gilbertville Meat Locker to make sure that the ingredients were as fresh and local as possible.
Check out the menu we came up featuring so many local ingredients:
BREAKFAST:
IOWA BREAKFAST BAKE
YOGURT from Country View Yogurt in Hawkeye, IA
HONEY from Shell Rock Honey in Shell Rock, IA
HARD COOKED EGGS from Connie’s Acres in Nashua, IA
BACON from Osceola, IA
LUNCH
BUTTERNUTTY MAC AND CHEESE
IOWA SPECIALTY PIZZA
APPLES from Beck Orchard in Buckingham, IA
SALAD GREENS from All Season’s Harvest in Cedar Falls, IA
DINNER
SWEET POTATO CHILI
PICO
CORNBREAD
CARROTS from SnoPac in Caledonia, MN
GREEN BEANS from Kerry’s Homegrown in Oelwein, IA
CORN from SnoPac in Caledonia, MN
DESSERTS
CHOCOLATE CHIP ZUCCHINI CAKE
APPLE CHEESECAKE BARS
ICE CREAM from Blue Bunny in Le Mars, IA
SOFT SERVE from Frostline Ice Cream in New Sharon, IA
The day of the event could not have gone better! Each meal included regular favorites like hard cooked eggs and bacon, apples, yogurt, and honey, but on this day we took the opportunity to highlight where our food comes from and thank the farmers. The egg bake was a favorite among the kitchen staff who really enjoyed making something new and delicious to share with the customers. Most of the students seemed to enjoy lunch the most, though. Mac and cheese and pizza are always hits, and it was so fun and rewarding to offer old favorites with a twist by including ingredients that the students might not have tried on their own. The mac and cheese was especially popular and we couldn’t serve it fast enough – we even ran out! The pizza was my favorite, with pork smoked right on campus, smokey barbecue sauce, and the Iowa staple, corn! The desserts at dinner were especially popular too – chocolate cake is always a hit, and the zucchini makes it deliciously moist. We absolutely loved sharing local ingredients in a fun and delicious way.
I think (I hope) that the staff is already looking forward to next year – Iowa Local Food Day is slated for the 4th Wednesday in September, the 27th! We hope to see you there!
Written by Stacey Runde, Dietetic Intern from Marywood University. She completed her Community and Food System Management rotations at the University of Northern Iowa from June through October 2022.
