A Feast for American Culinary Federation Chefs by Turkish Tastes

ACF National Convention 2022 took place at Caesars Forum Convention Center in Las Vegas. Hundreds of chefs, student chefs, and culinary instructors from many different states enjoyed being in Las Vegas after the pandemic as well as interacting with each other and suppliers. This year, they had another joy brought by Turkish Tastes: a lot of Turkish ingredients and the Turkish Tastes Reference Book that demonstrates how Turkish ingredients can be incorporated into both traditional Mediterranean cuisines and other contemporary cuisines including American cuisine as well.

As a sponsor of the convention Turkish Tastes served culinarians at the Welcome Reception, presented products and its reference book at the trade show, and delivered a demonstration at the main stage.

Turkish Tastes’ menu for Welcome Reception was designed by Chef Michelle Vietmeier. Chef Michelle utilized Turkish Sea Bass (also known as branzino or Mediterranean Sea Bass) in her ceviche recipe for the protein, traditional Turkish dolmas and roasted red pepper in muhammara as appetizers, and Turkish apricots and figs for the dessert. A sweet surprise presented to guests was Turkish Baklava straight from Turkiye.

Trade Show was where culinarians exactly engaged with the Turkish ingredients and their exporters from Turkiye. Dried figs, dried apricots, raisins, olive oil, and herbs & spices such as oregano, thyme, sumac, Aleppo pepper were ready there for chefs to try and get information from the first hand. As the core purpose of Turkish Tastes is to put chefs, buyers, and consumers directly in touch with ‘the source’ for information and products, Trade Show was a unique opportunity for American chefs and Turkish exporters to engage with each other.

The final part of Turkish Tastes feast was the presentation of and Utilizing Turkish Sea Bass and Other Turkish Ingredients in World Cuisines by Chef Michelle Vietmeier and Kazim Gurel, board member at Aegean Exporters’ Associations and known as Turkish Tastes Ambassador. As the pandemic and other public health concerns such as obesity and type-2 diabetes have shifted the momentum towards healthier diets, wide applications of Turkish ingredients in the foodservice industry caught ACF Chefs’ attention.