A Taste Of Disney: Shrimp And Grits

I am a big fan of the food at Walt Disney World. I have yet to have a meal that I didn't like. I will admit it, not every meal is out of this world amazing. But, the vast majority of the dishes I've  had the pleasure of trying are worth attempting at home. I have been collecting the Disney cookbooks for a few years now, trying to gather all my favorite dishes.

In my endeavor to own all the Disney cookbooks that have been published, I have made a goal of cooking as many of the dishes as I can. This recipe called out to me. I've never had it at the Grand Floridian, but I feel that what I was able to create at home is most likely pretty close.

Prep time: 20 min 

Cook time: 30 min 

Ready in: 50 min 

Yields: 4-6 servings

Ingredients

3 Cup Milk
2 3/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1 Small Onion, finely chopped
2 Cloves Garlic, minced
1 Cup Grits, regular or stone ground
1 Tsp Salt, coarse
3 Tbsp Butter, unsalted
1/2 Tsp Thyme, fresh and chopped
1/2 Tsp Rosemary, fresh and chopped
1/4 Cup Mascarpone Cheese
1/2 Cup Fennel
1 1/2lbs Shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 Tbsp Olive Oil, extra virgin
1/2 Cup Chorizo Sausage, crumbled
1 Cup White Wine

Cooking Instructions

1. Heat 3 cups of milk and 1 1/4 cups of heavy cream in a heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium heat until just simmering.
2. Stir in the onion and garlic.
3. Bring to a boil and slowly whisk in the grits and salt. Make sure to keep staring often and cook until grits are tender. (About the consistency of oatmeal)
4. Remove the grits from heat and stir in the thyme, rosemary, butter, and mascarpone. Keep the girts warm until ready to serve.
5. Heat olive oil in a large sauce pan, over medium-high heat, and add the shrimp.
6. Sauce the shrimp until they are just pink and then remove them from the pan. Keep the shrimp warm until the sauce is finished.
7. Reduce heat to medium and add the chorizo (if using), fennel, and onion. Cook until all are slightly brown.
8. Pour in the wine and scrape the bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook until the liquid reduces by half. Around 10 minutes.
9. Add the cream and reduce by half again.
10. Reduce heat to low and whisk in butter. Season as desired with salt and pepper.
11. Add the shrimp to the sauce and stir until well combined.
12. Place the girts in a bowl or a plate and top with the shrimp and sauce.

What was the outcome? Creamy flavorful grits and a wonderfully balanced sauce that is packed with proteins. Nic, who does not like the texture of grits, loved it. His only request is that I add more chorizo next time. I had only made enough of the shrimp, chorizo, and sauce for two servings. I was worried that Nic wouldn't like it and I figured I could poach an egg, plop it on the grits and call it breakfast. Well, he did like it and I still get my fancy egg and grits breakfast. Its a win for everyone! 

Planning for the Food and Wine Festival

The festival allows us to try things we normally
wouldn't

Planning ahead of your trip can make or break food and wine. It's true. If you just show up at EPCOT you will most likely wonder around, become overwhelmed by all the options, and end up stopping at every booth. You'll quickly become full, possibly get very tipsy, and you'll spend a lot of money. With this method you most likely won't be able to take full advantage of the festival as you will no longer be interested in eating after a few booths and will most likely miss out on something that sounds absolutely amazing. 

The list of booths and other attractions for the festival is released by Disney in the middle of spring. This will help you to kind of figure out what you may be interested in trying. Each country that is permanently found in the World Showcase will have a booth, keep this in mind as this means you can try cuisine from these countries any time you are at EPCOT. This means that unless you do not frequently travel to Disney or unless they have something incredibly unique on the menu it might be better to avoid these booths and spend your time and money elsewhere.

The prize for completing the cheese crawl

The menus will start to come out in the early summer time frame. This is what you want to pay attention to. The Disney food blog will start to really prepare for this festival at this time. Once the festival opens within a few days the Disney food blog, which is not affiliated with Disney, will have pictures and reviews for nearly every item. They will continually update with changes made and new reviews. Sometimes, there are items that are just not popular. Disney listens and will remove these items and replace them with something else. One example of this was the cheese crawl in 2021. There was a cheesy bread item from France that was a part of the cheese crawl. This item was very polarizing, people either hated it or they loved it. I had decided ahead of time that I wanted to try the cheese crawl, but France was off my list of things to try as all their items were poorly reviewed. I was not looking forward to this item, but figured I'd try it to complete the cheese crawl. By the time our trip cam round, about 3-4 weeks into the festival, that item was removed from the cheese crawl and replaced with something else. This was awesome as I did end up enjoying everything on the cheese crawl and was to claim my prize: a free dessert. We were actually able to cross off several of the booths based on their recommendations, which saved us time, money, and more importable allowed us to try other things. 

A small sampling of the festival offerings

After my first trip, where I had gone over what was there but made no other plans I learned. I had a vague idea of what was there and could kind of remember what I had wanted to try. But, we fell to the allure of all the different options and found ourselves unable to enjoy some of the things we had really wanted to try, but forgot about when we got to the park, because we had filled up on other things. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time. It was a lot of fun to eat and drink with my family, getting tipsy at EPCOT with my grandparents is one of my favorite memories. 

For the second trip I planned. The moment the menus were posted I was there. I was reading all the reviews. I typed out a list of each booth, each item offered at that booth and ranked what I wanted to try. I even put the pricing for each item so I could budget. In the end I had a list of various foods, wines, beers, and mixed drinks that totaled about $360. That's a lot. Keep in mind, Nic and I were going to be sharing all of these items and we were planning on visiting EPCOT multiple times during this trip. Like I said in my other post, I love this festival. 

In the end we tried nearly everything on my list. When we got there we made some changes on the fly, typically because something that sounded awesome when I was planning 3 months prior no longer sounded awesome in 90 degree 100% humidity Florida. Often, we replaced them with other things. In all we still probably spend about $340 at the festival. Planning a head of time helped us a lot. We knew which booths we wanted to hit up and which we wanted to avoid. For example, we knew we did not want to try anything at the mac and cheese or vegetarian themed booths. The menu items sounded great, but we felt our money was better spent at other places. Especially since we ended up hitting up Mexico and Ireland twice, Nic just loved the Guinness milkshake and we both wanted to try everything on the menu at Mexico, which we did. We ended up at EPCOT 3 times, once for a half day where we had dinner through food and wine, once for the entire day where we had lunch and dinner through food and wine, and once just stopping by for another Guinness milkshake. We had a park hopper pass so why not? 

That Guinness shake

Back to budgeting. It was a bit surprising that we had a must try list of $360. And that was after I went back and moved some things from my 'I'd like to try this' list to the 'if we try this we try this' list. Still that was a pretty large amount. In fact my parents thought it was hilarious. But, this is something Nic and I are interested in so we were fine with it. Before the trip we had purchased gift cards, I think most people know that Costco often has a deal where you can get $150 worth of Disney gift cards for $145. This saved us a bit of money, thank you Costco. We linked a credit card to our magic bands, paid with our magic bands each time we got something, and then used our gift cards to pay the balance at the hotel concierge desk. In the end only $100 or so was charged on my credit card for the entire trip. Personally, I've found that to be the best way for us. Some people like to pay directly with the gift cards and when they're gone they're done. If that works for you go for it. I personally, liked knowing that I could do what I wanted and had the ease of using my magic band to pay. 

The bottom line is if you know you will be sampling the offering of the food and wine festival you should plan ahead. Having an idea of what will be there and how much you will spend will make the trip more enjoyable. You won't feel pressured to stop by every booth or try something from every place. 

EPCOT Food And Wine Festival

Each booth has a large menu

This festival has been a staple at EPCOT for decades. Over the years it has grown and it continues to change with each year. However, it still remains to be one of the most popular attractions at EPCOT. This festival had been on my must try list for years. When I was in high school I wanted to try all the different foods from around the world. I loved dining at the permanent counties at the World Showcase and wanted to try things that I would not otherwise get to try. Somewhere in my mid 20's I started to enjoy wine and I really wanted to be able to pair wine and food. 

This festival is popular for a reason. The food is fantastic. Simply put, there aren't that many that aren't good. Sure there are some options that give you more bang for your buck and some that are just leaps and bounds above the rest. The amount of variety in foods and drinks is just mind blowing. 

All this is made of chocolate

In order to prevent yourself from going broke or getting too overwhelmed at the festival I strongly recommend setting a budget and planning ahead of your trip. This will allow you to make the most of your time while you are there and help you to try as many things as you want. If you were to just show up and walk around the various booths to try to figure out what you want you would very likely be full, tipsy, and broke after just a few and you very well may miss out on something amazing. 

I'll speak more about how I recommend planning and budgeting for the festival in another post. I could honestly fill a book with planning and budgeting. If I were to include it all in one post you would never get through it. 

The festival has changed a lot over the years. It is the reason some people choose to vacation at Disney in the fall. There is a spring time version at California Adventure, but it never seems to have the buzz that EPCOT does. A lot of the locals will spend a few hours at the parks during the less busy weekdays and enjoy the various offerings of food and drinks. I'm actually kind of jealous because that sounds like a much better way to get to sample all that the festival has to offer. 

The food and wine passport is a must have. 

Before COVID changed everything the festival offered the food and beverages at the various booths, but there was also so much more. There were culinary demonstrations, concerts, and classes where you could learn anything from different cooking techniques to food and wine pairings. They have had some concerts still during COVID, but the classes have disappeared and the demonstrations are limited. Hopefully, they will bring back more attractions once things start to return to normal. 

In 2021 the festival had been greatly extended, running from September through November. This was honestly a good thing since the vast majority of EPCOT was under construction so there really wasn't a whole lot to do. Though, it did make the World Showcase area much more crowded, which made finding a place to enjoy your food and beverages harder. I'm sure once more things start to open back up at the park the crowds at food and wine will lessen again. 

EPCOT decorates the entire park for the festival

There is so much to experience at this festival that there is bound to be something for everyone. Disney has even made  great effort to ensure that those with special dietary restrictions can enjoy themselves too. Which I think is amazing. The most recent trip we saw a booth that was dedicated to vegetarians and vegans. There are even notes on the menus about which items are available gluten free. 

Overall, I love the food and wine festival. I've been twice and am currently planning my third trip. I've learned a lot from the first trip when I was so overwhelmed by all the options. I feel that there isn't much else more relaxing that enjoying fine dining and drinks with good company on a nice day at EPCOT. Honestly, even in the rain we've had a good time.