Assiniboine’s cooking competition leaves the taste buds singing
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/03/2018 (2967 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
I am not blessed with the accomplished taste buds of a master chef — or even those of a line cook in a truck stop diner — but as is the case with most of us home cooks, I know what I like.
And like the journalist that I am, I’m always eager to learn more about the craft of cooking.
So when Assiniboine Community College contacted me about spending a day last week as one of three judges for the Manitoba Pork Council Black Box Competition, I treated the occasion as a chance to speak with experts in the culinary arts.
I humbly joined two expert chefs:
•Larry de Vries, a participant in the World Culinary Olympics, a longtime chef instructor at Crocus Plains school in Brandon — now retired — and an inductee to the honour society of the canadian Federation of Chefs.
•And Hannah Natrasowy, the pastry chef at the Prairie Firehouse restaurant on Princess Avenue.
Three competitors, all first-year culinary arts students, put a great deal of effort into two courses — one a soup, the other an entrée — using Manitoba pork tenderloin they found in the black boxes they opened recently. But of course.
Oh, and bacon. There was a lot of bacon.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of the chefs in progress as they created their masterpieces for the competition, the judging for me was a whole new world.
Learning why sauces are better served under a meat protein rather than slathered on top, or how little things like a menu description that promises too much — and fails to deliver — can hurt a participant at the judges table.
My takeaway lesson — professional food preparation, like the printed word, requires editing before it can shine.
It was a great learning experience. My only regret, if I have one is the fact that as a judge, I was limited to tasting a few spoonfuls — not indulging my grumbling stomach.
For the record, here are the competition placements:
•Jessi Coulter — First place, with a prize of $1,700.
•Kieran Picton — Second place, winning $900.
•Kassandra Twigg — Third place, and $700.
» Matt Goerzen is the managing editor of The Brandon Sun
