Vito Buscemi
Culinary Manager
Delaware North Companies
Travel Hospitality Services
Buffalo, NY
"With the transient traffic in an airport, we make freshness our priority. We have the traditional chef and caesar salads, but we wanted to do something new, something fresh. We developed the Nana salad —named after my grandmother—which uses canned pears, pecans, dried cranberries, and grilled chicken over a spring mix. It's our top selling salad.
"The pears and cranberries add a really great flavor contrast to the greens. They keep really well and they look delicious in the packaging."
Kerry Paterson
Executive Chef
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO
"In our entrees, we like to incorporate fruit salads as freshness additives. We do a peach jalapeno fruit chutney that's good enough to eat on it's own. We have a pineapple fruit salsa that we serve with ham. We have a pineapple-mango-apple chutney which we serve over halibut. In all these dishes the fruit provides a refreshing summery taste that would otherwise not exist.
"We also do an organic fruit salad with the traditional items, except the fruit is all organic. Students are increasingly more aware of where their foods comes from. It doesn't matter if it's just a raw apple or if its cut up and sold in a cup. It may not seem like much on the surface, but students appreciate the fact that we go the extra mile."
Catherine Gerard
Nutrition Education Specialist and Menu Planner
Pinellas County School District
Largo, FL
"Kids like to eat with their fingers. As we continue to try and increase fruit and vegetable consumption in our schools, we find that the more finger foods we can offer, the better. Fruit is a perfect finger food application.
"In our prepackaged salads we use apple slices, grapes, peaches and chunks of melon—anything students can pick up. We have a stuffed pear and cheese salad that is really popular. We also serve cored halved apples or pears with peanut butter. The little ones just love those.
"We also have a pre-plated fruit salad with a yogurt dipping sauce. Again, the more interactive the food, the better."
PHOTO BY PACIFIC NORTHWEST PEAR ASSOCIATION