Culture flavors the wedding menus

Pit barbecue, rustic Italian and family style steak

BY SYLVIA CARTER
Special to Newsday

January 20, 2008

In ways both dramatic and subtle, food at wedding receptions nowadays features the unexpected.

When Giannina Nicola married Joseph Laterza at the Watermill in Smithtown in September, the rustic Italian menu was designed to make guests from the south of Italy, her father's first cousins, feel right at home.

When Patricia Rother married James Michael Bennett at home in Southold, her family entertained with a typical Argentine barbecue -- her brother presiding over the pit and the caterer preparing chimichurri, a garlicky green sauce, from her mother's recipe. And when Gil Tavalin, wine and beverage director for Rothman's Steak House group, married Francine Nelson, also at the Watermill, the menu was steak house and family style, reflecting the groom's expertise.

Christopher Singleman, executive chef at Watermill Caterers, said that for the Tavalins' wedding, 42-ounce porterhouse steaks were served family style with a slight twist: creamed spinach, sauteed mushrooms, fried onions and mashed potatoes.

Today's couples, Singleman said, are "a lot more savvy, a lot more educated. They're looking for more variety, more options. They are looking for combination plates, restaurant-style plating, sophisticated garnishes." The Food Network, he said, has had a big influence. "I have brides and grooms bringing in clippings or saying they saw this on TV, and saying, 'Is this possible?'"

Barbara Michaelson, an owner and chef at Seasoned Caterers in Southold, said that people "still try to pick things that are mainstream" to please everyone, "but I've been cooking them differently," such as cedar-planking salmon or adding citrus-tamarind flavors to the fish. Grilled vegetables, for one client, were fennel, radicchio, endive, butternut squash and shiitake mushrooms, anything but the "same old."

For the Rother wedding, Michaelson made chimichurri to go with the meats and lots of salads, but Juan Rother, the bride's brother, came from Argentina to preside as parrillero, or pit boss, over the asado, a slow Argentine-style barbecue. The wine was Argentine Malbec, there was lemonade and iced tea instead of soda, and the main meal was served at 10 p.m. -- late by American standards but early for Argentine revelers who often go all night and eat as the sun rises.

Giannina Laterza, a marketing specialist who lives in Babylon, said that a Mediterranean food station with food prepared to order at her wedding reception included sardines with garlic and oil, grilled whole redfish, snails and a slew of other dishes typical of Frosinone, a coastal town in Italy that is home to her father's family. There was a ravioli bar, rabbit, escarole and beans, soft polenta with meat sauce, chicken scarpariello, striped bass oreganata, pork chops rustica, veal chops and a cappuccino and espresso bar.

"Everyone went crazy," Laterza added, over a salad of blood oranges, fennel, arugula and shaved Parmesan cheese.

Singleman has prepared caldo verde soup for a Portuguese party and moussaka with the traditional lamb instead of ground beef for a Greek wedding. Sushi chefs are brought in upon request, and "Oriental flavors are a big thing right now, especially when it comes to fish." Singleman even went to the bride's house to learn to make a South American rice dish.

"I'm constantly re-educating myself," he said.

Copyright 2008 Newsday Inc.