Preparations are underway for the Ethnic Food Fair

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Martin Luther King Jr. Day is just a week away and the celebrations for the federal holiday are already in full swing.

This week students in the culinary program at Zane State College are hard at work preparing food for the annual Ethnic Food Fair. The annual fair features foods from four different ethnic groups with the menu selected by the students in the Culinary Arts Program at Zane State College.

“This is our 26th year of having the Ethnic Food Fair. Every year the students come up with these different..four different cuisines,” said Chef Marco Adornetto, the Culinary Arts Program Coordinator at Zane State College. “This year is Soul, Italian, Indian, and German. And they start back in the fall, the second year students, they develop the menu, the recipes. And we work on them in the fall.”

Adornetto said the second year students pic the ethnicities featured each year and then pick the cuisines for each one. Then all of the students in the program — about 15 — help prepare the food.

“All the students make the food. Marco just kind of directs us and we’ll do the first batch with him and he’ll show us what we need to do and how we can correct it and make it better,” said Sarah Sampson a first year student in the Culinary Arts Program.  “And then he’s just kind of there for guidance after that. But definitely all the students are the ones that do all the work.”

The Ethnic Food Fair will take place this Friday at 11 a.m. at Zane State College.The fair will feature student speakers from Zanesville High School who will be starting classes at Zane State next week. It’s one of many celebrations taking place this weekend for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the Zane State College Business Office.