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Great Bahamian cook-off
WELCOME BAHAMAS - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - 2003
Great Bahamian cook-off
Gloves-off competition among chefs
Five years ago, Julia Burnside and her colleagues at the Department of Tourism were dreaming up ways to showcase the talents of Bahamian "culinarians." They knew that chefs trained at the School of Hospitality and Tourism Studies at the College of The Bahamas (COB) were world-class but wondered how to demonstrate that to the world.
Their solution was the Great Bahamian Seafood Festival, an event that pit teams of Bahamian chefs against one another in an annual cooking competition.
It was a good idea and it worked, drawing interest from within and outside the country. But something was missing: the focus was on the range of seafood available in The Bahamas, not especially on the chefs and the exacting training they receive at the School of Hospitality and Tourism Studies at the College of The Bahamas.
So the competition was expanded in the year 2000 to include a full range of indigenous products, not only seafood but poultry, meats and home-grown vegetables and fruits. And that, says Burnside, is how, the Great Bahamian Seafood Festival became the Bahamas Culinary Classic, now the premier event in the nation's culinary calendar.
Battle of the chefs
Today, the Classic is a three-day "battle of the chefs" that attracts "the highest calibre of culinarians from hotels throughout The Bahamas," says Burnside. The chefs, who must be members of the Bahamas Culinary Association, compete in several categories and there are separate competitions at both the apprentice and professional levels.
Though it is serious competition, the Classic is also a fun event, well attended by Bahamians and visitors from the US and abroad.
There's a Celebrities Choice Cocktail Reception at COB the night before the main competition. Guests sample canapes created by the competing chefs in what's billed as a "declaration of war."
While the chefs labour over their creations in the school's kitchens, vendors set up stalls on the lawns in front of COB for a day-long offering of typical Bahamian foods, including johnny cake, corn bread, conch fritters and barbecued chicken, all served up to music provided by Bahamian performers.
Secret ingredients
The main event, however, is the Mystery Basket competition, which typically begins at 6am. Each team of four chefs is presented with a basket of secret ingredients from which they must whip up a four-course dinner - hors d'ouvres, soup, main course and dessert. The meals are judged on taste, originality, presentation and nutrition.
Competition is vigorous - in September 2002, the teams vying for top honours represented several big hotels in Nassau and Paradise Island, as well as Freeport's Our Lucaya, along with a team of instructors from the School of Hospitality and Tourism Studies. Major hotels in the Classic were Atlantis, SuperClubs Breezes, Sandals Royal Bahamian, the Sheraton Grand Resort, Radisson Cable Beach and the British Colonial Hilton, which competed for the first time.
Judging them was a panel of four experts led by Roland Schaffer, senior chef for the HJ Heinz Corporation, an internationally recognized authority.
Winning is a big deal, bringing not only gifts, prizes and medals, but instant recognition, American Culinary Federation (ACF) certification, and the right to take part in ACF events.
In 2002, top honours went to the team from the School of Hospitality and Tourism Studies: chefs Emmanuel Gibson, Eldred Saunders, Sterling Thompson and Addiemae Farrington.
When he received his prizes, Saunders, head of the Food and Beverage Department at the School, told reporters that the use of indigenous foods and the level of competition was "awesome."
Farrington noted that many of her competitors last year were former students in her classes, who had gone on to take advanced training outside the country. Winning, she said, was evidence that "the instructors in The Bahamas are on par with those away."
She and her colleagues will be back in 2003, she promised, challenging top professional chefs across the land.
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