Chef from Slovakia Visits Plymouth State
Nick Pulliam
For the Clock
ntpulliam@plymouth.edu
Some of you may remember that last semester a Belgian chef visited PSU to share some food from his culture. This week another chef named Lukas Sol’ar came to visit.
Lukas Solar is a chef from Slovakia who has been with Sodexo for about ten years now. He enjoys challenging himself in the kitchen by learning new techniques and recipes.
Both chefs came here as part of Sodexo’s Global Chef Program. A program that is meant to take advantage of Sodexo’s operations in 82 countries and allow them to share their different foods and cultures. It gives chefs the opportunity to share recipes from their home country. Each time chefs have visited this semester, they have also brought along some other products of their culture, like popular storybooks.
Rodney Vermeulen, a Sodexo employee at PSU, says that these exchange programs are “an opportunity for the students and faculty to learn about some cuisine that they may have not been otherwise able to.”
There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to even create the opportunity for these chefs to visit. Several local Sodexo chefs went up to Keene recently to practice Sol’ar’s recipes in preparation for his visit to PSU.
Once he got here he cooked for the first three days of the week. On Monday there was an exclusive Slovakian food and wine tasting in Heritage Hall for PSU faculty. On Tuesday he was in the HUB for a few hours creating samples of some of his food. Then on Wednesday he was at Prospect Hall for lunch and dinner. Some of the dishes he made were an oyster mushroom dumpling, a spicy cabbage soup, and a bacon wrapped sausage tenderloin.
He will be that last visiting chef this year, since only one comes every semester, but come next year it is very possible that another chef will come to provide a glimpse at their countries food and culture.