Farm to Fair, a multi-course dinner at the Iowa State Fair, celebrated its fifth iteration of the event this year, bringing more Iowa farmers, chefs and community members together to support local agriculture.
The exclusive event, held on the evening of Sunday, Aug. 16, featured Iowa farmers who had their products used in the meals, 100 people that entered and won tickets from a raffle system, and three Iowa chefs who prepared the four-course meal. Choose Iowa, a state-run marketing program for agriculture, hosted the event at the Alliant Energy Landing.
This year, the Des Moines Register was able to try the three main courses.
The meal started off with a breakfast pot pie made by chef Andrea Love, a Des Moines resident who founded her Beaverdale-based business Dinner Delights in 2017. The pot pie, a classic Midwestern staple, featured a bed of country gravy, diced potatoes and scrambled eggs topped with a moist and cheesy biscuit. Garnishing the dish was tomato jam, which cut through the heaviness of the carbs, gravy and eggs with an acidic and somewhat sweet flavor.
Iowa-based private chef and winner of season 13 of MasterChef Grant Gillon prepared the second course, a corn bisque topped with smoked beef. The bisque was a bit different from the typical Iowan comfort soup in that it was served cold, kind of like a corn gazpacho.
On a hot fair day, though, the cold soup was light and refreshing and had a deep flavor profile with the addition of miso to accompany the sweet corn. The garnish of smoked beef added some more body to the light soup while not filling you up too much in preparation for the entree: sous vide beef, mashed potatoes and carrots.
The dish was prepared by chef Aaron Holt, the owner and operator of Catering by Doolittle Farm in Altoona. The beef was so tender that it fell apart with barely any effort from the plastic utensils. The peppercorn gravy added a nice tang, while the honey butter carrots added a sweet bite to the meal.
The dinner was finished off on a sweet note with ice cream from Picket Fence Creamery in Woodward.
Dinner highlights Iowa foods, diverse agriculture
Karen Swalwell was one of the dinner’s attendees who won two tickets through a questionnaire raffle system, where those who wanted to secure tickets had to answer questions like, “If a farmer were sitting next to you, what would you want to know?”
Swalwell, a resident of West Des Moines, said she had lots of questions she would like to ask farmers as someone who lives in an urban area and is not so familiar with the agriculture scene, which is why she decided to enter into the raffle.
“We need more things that interact urban with rural,” Swalwell said.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig spoke at the start of the event and encouraged exactly this kind of interaction with attendees, telling everyone to feel free to ask farmers, who could be identified by red buttons they were given, whatever they were curious about.
Two of those farmers were Curt and Connie Bronnenberg, who have run Spring Valley Honey Farms in Perry for over 40 years. Curt Bronnenberg said this event gives people a chance to see how diverse and unique Iowa’s agricultural landscape is. Most people think of agriculture as traditional corn or soybean farming, but it also includes farms like the one ran by him and his wife, he said.
All three chefs emphasized the importance of the event, the attention it brings to all the work that goes behind local food production and how it forges local connections that may not have been made elsewhere.
“I’m a farm-to-table guy, that’s what I do. I want to know my farmers that I’m purchasing from so I can tell that story to my clients, so this is even one step further,” Gillon said. “Having the producers here is absolutely incredible.”
Isabelle Foland is a communities reporter for the Register. Reach her at ifoland@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Farm to Fair dinner showcases Iowa agriculture at Iowa State Fair
Reporting by Isabelle Foland, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Isabelle Foland, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
