Taste Your Way Through Taliesin
Famed Wisconsinite architect Frank Lloyd Wright had an innate ability to design charming, captivating structures. Taliesin, his home and workspace located in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is no exception. The estate continues to attract thousands of visitors from across the globe, who marvel at the beauty of his bounteous architectural legacy.
But Taliesin is more than just a pretty face. Not only does it boast a unique design and complicated history, it also houses the ingenuitive Riverview Terrace Café: a laboratory of cuisine that successfully translates Wright’s creativity into the delicious context of the kitchen.
The café makes fresh, natural ingredients a priority. This is no easy task, but as Taliesin communication manager Aron Meudt-Thering puts it, “If it were easy, then every café would do it.”
Everything from chicken to beef to cheese is sourced from various different producers that all lie within a ten to fifteen mile radius of the kitchen. Similarly, vegetables, herbs and even edible flowers are all plucked from local gardens, including Fazenda Boa Terra, a plot that grows on the very grounds of the Taliesin estate.
In addition to its appreciation of fresh ingredients, the Riverview Terrace Café makes a considerable effort to let fresh, new sets of chefs into its kitchen. The café holds a Food Artisan Immersion Program, in which a group of students, ranging from green high schoolers to well-seasoned chefs, practice harvesting and preparing food.
In truth, anyone could teach these students how to cook. But it takes the imaginative minds and vast natural resources of Taliesin to teach them how to think creatively— how to tinker with taste, texture and color until each element proves itself to be complementary to the other. The creative process is highly valued by the program. According to chef and program manager Bruce Evans, the kitchen is adorned with a sign that reads, ‘Play with your food!’
The students work hard to abide by those words of encouragement. They preserve rhubarb juice so that they don’t have to be too reliant on citrus during its off-season: they celebrated Wright’s birthday with a dish that took burdock root, a tough root that is often utilized for tea, and braising it to create a more ingenuitive result— burdock hummus.
Ultimately, Evans hopes that the students take away a deeper appreciation for their food and recognize the dedication that is often needed for its cultivation.
“[Food] is a precious resource that we take for granted so often, but when you look at the hard work that goes into growing food, farmers are some of the hardest workers in the country, I believe,” Evans states.
Luckily, one doesn’t have to be a farmer or student of the program to truly appreciate the hard work that gets put into each dish at the Riverview Terrace Café. In addition to being open to the public during the spring and autumn seasons, the Café hosts events, such as the upcoming ‘Taste of Taliesin.’ Guests of this event will be invited to roam the lush grounds of Taliesin, enjoying the cuisine provided by four different stations, thoughtfully placed near various poignant structures of the estate. At each station, chefs will prepare small-plate dishes, beverages and desserts, with each mouthful as calculated in its design as Taliesin itself.
