The first ever salsa-making workshop was held on Wednesday, September 20 by the University of Wisconsin-Platteville’s Office of Sustainability. The event helped students learn how to spot ripened vegetables and how to harvest them. Almost all of the ingredients used in the salsa were grown in the university’s edible garden. Students at the event were asked to find and pick vegetables from the garden such as tomatoes, jalapenos and cilantro. After enough ingredients were picked, students went to make pico de gallo, a salsa, with the fresh ingredients. Students were taught a couple techniques to help grow their culinary skills like how to properly hold a knife while cutting and how to spot ripe vegetables. All of the waste from the ingredients was collected and composted for the garden.

“We started with salsa because it’s such an easy one. You really only need four ingredients and it is pretty awesome. So almost anyone can do it and you can grow almost all of the ingredients in your backyard if you wanted to,” sustainability coordinator Amy Seeboth said.

Overall, the event appeared to be a success with around 20 students showing up to make salsa. Students learned information regarding the food we eat such as most food is grown for shipping and longevity instead of flavor. The goal of this event was to help students be able to make their own food by scratch. This was the first of many events that are being held by UW-Platteville’s Office of Sustainability. Some of these events consist of pizza making, a soup making workshop and “Recyclemania”.

“Yeah, it was awesome,” said Seeboth. “We had a really good turnout and I feel like everybody had fun. Hopefully they walked away with new skills and more confidence in their cooking abilities, which is what we were hoping for.”