3/5/2008 10:11:16 AM
Students head to culinary competition
Three students at College of the North Atlantic’s (CNA) Bay St. George campus will compete for a spot to be one of Canada’s top aspiring chefs.
Holly Musseau, Greg Gillard, and Gina Roberts will compete in the provincial portion of the Canadian Federation of Chefs & Cooks (CCFCC) Junior Culinary Challenge.
Musseau, from Corner Brook, Gillard, from Pasadena and Roberts, from Port aux Basques, have been training for weeks for the provincial competition which will be held at the college’s Price Philip Drive campus in St. John’s on March 8.
According to Jay Stuckless, an instructor for Culinary Arts program at Bay St. George campus, these first year students have been putting in many hours to get ready for the culinary competition.
“They’re required to produce a menu consisting of three courses – the appetizer, main course and dessert. They have to do eight plates of each and they have five hours to produce them.”
Each of the students has been spending eight to 10 hours a week in the kitchen perfecting their dishes.
“Currently they’re practicing – they are going through procedures and techniques and trying to iron out each course. They get to choose what they want to do in terms of the menu, but they’re given a set amount of ingredients. They were given a list and they have already decided what they want to make. Now that’s what they’re practicing – what they want to make during the competition,” says Stuckless.
This competition is not involved with their formal studies at CNA and the students are using their own time for practice.
“The CCFCC competition has nothing to do with class – they are doing this all on their own time. They’re putting in about 8-10 hours a week on this in addition to their class time. But once it gets close to the wire they’re going to be in there at last five days a week for the last two weeks before the competition.”
Stuckless says these three first year students took it upon themselves to take part in the culinary challenge.
“I pretty much left it up to the students. Anyone in our class who was interested could register for the event and those are the three that showed interest. The challenge in St. John’s allows a maximum of 10 competitors. It didn’t exceed 10 so all three students from CNA are allowed to compete in the event.”
Ten competitors will meet in St. John’s for the provincial challenge and the winner will go on to the national competition.
“This competition is set up by the CCFCC and the ultimate goal for the students who win is to be on the Next Great Chef television show. But first they have to make it through the provincial round.”
One person from each of the 10 provinces will move on to the national competition.
For the national event, the judging team will consist of a minimum of five judges and each competitor will be judged on their cooking skills, food presentation and food taste.
In addition to preparing a menu, which must be written in a proper format describing each course, the competitors must submit a work plan which specifies each preparation step as well as the approximate time to perform the task; the recipes which must be written with specified ingredient amounts and method of preparation for each aspect of the menu; and the requisition of ingredients that includes the quantities of all recipe ingredients which must be specified on the ingredient list.
Should one of CNA’s students win the provincial competition, he or she will move on to the national championships where the winner will be awarded $2,000 cash and an opportunity to travel with Youth Team Canada for the 2008 IKA in Erfurt, Germany. Second place will receive $1,500 cash and third place will receive $1,000 cash. The remaining seven finalists will each receive $300 in cash.
-30-