By Mark Baratelli
Listen to Orlando Opinions podcast
Listen to Orlando Opinions podcast
Recently Visit Orlando headed an effort to crowdsource the answer to a question nobody asked: What is Orlando's signature dish? You know, like New York City's famous pizza, Chicago's famous pizza and Philadelphia's famous pizza.
Rather than asking locals to TELL them, Visit Orlando asked hotel chefs, theme park chefs and a few locals to make up the signature dish. As far as we know, no one in NYC/CHI/PHL was asked by a public/private company to make up the famous pizza. It just happened.
Rather than asking locals to TELL them, Visit Orlando asked hotel chefs, theme park chefs and a few locals to make up the signature dish. As far as we know, no one in NYC/CHI/PHL was asked by a public/private company to make up the famous pizza. It just happened.
The signature dish had to include honey as an ingredient (because apparently Florida exports honey) and it had to be a dessert. Chefs entered the contest and 5 judges picked the winner. The answer to the question NOBODY asked was answered last week: Honey Nougat Glacé.
The project was inspired by the vacations of a rich white woman, Orange County Mayor Theresa "knotted pearls aren't just for 1990s middle school secretaries" Jacobs. We told you this project was racist, nowhere near local-centric and void of representation of ethnic (except French), street or casual food in the invited planning group. Now we want to confirm Orlando Weekly's Faiyaz Kara's thoughts: it's effing stupid.
If one has eaten on a cruise ship this will be easily recognized.
So what should be Orlando's Signature Dish? At first I felt it should be Beefy King's sandwich. It's an inexpensive dish from a restaurant with tons of local history that started in Orlando. Then through a brief twit-versation, Faiyaz convinced me that if we're to use Visit Orlando's model of deciding on one dish that every restaurant (who wants to) will sell, a meat sammich perfected by one restaurant may not work. For now, I move Beefy King from SigDish to the "must visit" list.
So I second Faiyaz's nomination of... the turkey leg. It can be re-created by any restaurant, each restaurant can easily make their own version and most importantly it's legit. Yes everyone jumps for joy anytime a local restaurant opens (as I do as well) but we're not known to billions of humans for our locally-sourced beet salad. Those turkey legs are what the world knows us for.