~ This post is from a guest writer, Bev, who is a UF alumni and former CASU president. Read about her food experience at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival! ~
EPCOT Food and Wine: A Love Story
by Bev M.
I’ve been converted. My whole life I’ve been blind, and now I see. I’ve experienced the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival. Let me get this out of the way: $175. I went with my mom, and we shared everything, so this is the price of one person’s park admission plus my half of what we paid for food. Tasting portions are $4 to $7 each, and we tried about 25 things (including drinks), which was enough food for lunch and dinner for both of us. It’s not cheap, but if you subtract the park admission, it’s also about what you’d pay for lunch and dinner for 2 in a restaurant. Essentially, if you’re okay with paying for a day at EPCOT, it’s not at all unreasonable. For the uninitiated, the EPCOT world showcase is a loop of miniature cities, each featuring shops and restaurants representing a particular country. During Food and Wine, additional booths are set up in between the countries, so that even more cultures can be represented -- think food truck fair meets Disney magic. Each nation’s booth features a tasting menu with 3 dishes to choose from, plus a selection of relevant beer and wine. It would take days to even put a dent in the list of things to eat. We ate nonstop for 8 hours and still only visited maybe a third of the stations. The staff was impressively efficient, and even the longest lines were well worth the wait. From truffled filet mignon in Canada, to crispy pork belly in Brazil, to a chocolate-devoted booth featuring truffles made with liquid nitrogen, this was an epicurean adventure from start to finish. They say a snap story is worth a thousand words (or something), so if you'd like to live vicariously, here's my diligent documentation of everything that went in my mouth:
I hope that you, too, can one day see the light.