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Best food: Alabama and Philippines (tie!)
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Best Presentation: Mexico
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Best Ethnic/Attire: Sri Lanka
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Best Performance: India
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Student Award: India
One of Darden’s six international affinity clubs, the International Business Society (IBS), hosted the much anticipated 25th Annual International Food Festival on September 29th. Twenty-three teams representing 30 countries cooked up their favorite regional dishes for the almost 600 people in attendance. Many of the teams, made up of students and their partners, dressed in their countries’ traditional attire and shared their culture via musical and dance performances. This family-friendly event is one of the hallmark student events of the Fall and a testament to our community’s commitment to share and learn about our diverse cultural heritage.
Jie Cao, Second Year student and President of IBS commented about the importance of IFF. “It is the single biggest flagship cultural fusion event in Darden every year, where students from different countries have a chance to present their cuisine, ethnicity and culture. It is also a great event for others (even extended to outside of Darden) to be a gourmet and learn about different foods. IBS is in a position to leverage different affinity clubs to organize this fun event for the whole community.”
When asked about the most rewarding aspect of organizing IFF, Jie stated that, “Without any hesitation, I would say the rewarding aspect comes from those two and half hours when we see everyone is having fun! All those efforts paid off! Some other rewarding elements are from building IBS team work and morale through the whole organizing process, and many lessons learnt.”
About a dozen faculty and staff were asked to be judges (it is a tough job having to sample all the delicious foods!), and here were the results from this year’s IFF:
