Courtesy White Gull Inn
A team approach
Regional foods can also become the focus of activities, excursions and team-building events. The Woodstock Inn in Vermont, for instance, will arrange maple syrup tastings.
“It’s similar to a wine-tasting,” Lowe said. “Each person can have their own opinion as to which is the best syrup.”
During “sugar season” in spring, groups at Woodstock Inn can visit nearby Sugarbush Farm to tour the sugarhouse, tap the maple trees and make their own maple products.
At Plain and Fancy Farm, the chef’s cooking demonstrations teach groups to make shoofly pie and chicken potpie. A popular and unusual activity is the Bizarre Foods of Lancaster County tasting, which begins with chowchow or apple butter, “We start very tame,” said Jennifer Buchter, director of sales.
Then the inn pulls out scrapple, a meat product made with animal scraps; cup cheese, a thin spreadable cheese; and calf’s foot jelly, made with a stock that includes a calf’s foot. It sets like gelatin when cold. Birch beer and shoofly pie top off the tasting.
“It’s a fun activity that’s intended as an icebreaker,” Buchter said.
At the Ritz-Carlton Lodge in Georgia, corporate groups learn about barbecue sauce from the resort’s Barbecue Butlers, masters who talk about wood chips, meat cuts, rubs, sauces and sides before they lead a tasting.
Teams led by a barbecue sauce chef can make their own masterpieces from ingredients in a black box, as on the television show “Chopped.”
“It’s very popular and a very local, unique team-building experience,” said Yann Chapin, the resort’s executive chef.
The Fairmount Scottsdale Princess promotes the area’s Latin and cowpoke past with a chili cook-off. Teams of five to 10 people must come up with their own recipe, a name for their chili dish and a sales pitch. Each team receives the same basic ingredients and equipment. Ribbons are awarded.
Rowleys Bay Resort
800-999-2466
www.rowleysbayresort.com
Inn at Brunswick Station
207-837-6565
www.innatbrunswickstation.com
Phillips Crab Deck and Phillips Crab House
www.phillipsseafood.com
Plain and Fancy Farm
800-669-3568
www.plainandfancyfarm.com
AmishView Inn and Suites
866-735-1600
www.amishviewinn.com
Woodstock Inn & Resort
888-338-2745
www.woodstockinn.com
Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation
706-467-0600
www.ritzcarlton.com
Shanty Creek Resorts
800-678-4111
www.shantycreek.com
Tampa Convention Center
813-274-8511
www.tampaconventioncenter.com
