Camosun hosts prestigious provincial culinary challenge

The oven gloves are coming off for the annual one-day provincial culinary challenge hosted by the Canadian Culinary Federation Victoria branch at Camosun College on Saturday, March 10.

“The culinary challenge is the provincial qualifier for the national competition of the Canadian Culinary Federation,” notes Camosun Culinary Arts Chair Steve Walker-Duncan. “This it the first time in four years that Victoria has hosted provincials and we’re pleased to welcome competitors and guests right here to our top red-seal certified facility at Camosun.”

Ten culinary competitors are fighting for two spots (one junior and one senior) to represent British Columbia at the Sysco Culinary Challenge this June in Prince Edward Island at the Canadian Culinary Federations’ (CCFCC) National Convention.

“Camosun is very well represented,” says Walker-Duncan. “We have four Camosun students out of ten participants competing which will hopefully give them some home field advantage.”

The event kicks off at 11am on Saturday, March 10 at the Helmut Huber Culinary Arts Centre at Camosun’s Interurban campus. The format is a challenging one-hour competition where participants will each create a dish freshly prepared from scratch utilizing items from the ‘Black Box’. “Juniors will prepare four unique plates and seniors six,” notes Walker Duncan. “There will be a common table of ingredients that they know about coming into the competition, along side a ‘black box’ of ingredients that they won’t know about until the moment of the competition. The box will contain two proteins, two herbs, three vegetables, a starch and a cheese and they must use all or at least some of each of the black box ingredients in their dish. They can use the common table as much or as little as they want to create the rest of their plates.” The competitors have just fifteen minutes to plan their dish before the sixty-minute cooking time begins. The ingredients have been generously donated by Sysco Victoria.

The competition is challenging, interactive and fun and the public are invited to attend free of charge to watch and taste the results. “We would love to have Camosun folks and members of the public attend so that this world class food does not go to waste,” says Walker-Duncan. “After the judges have a chance to do their jobs, the rest of the plates will be served to industry and non-profit partners, along with audience members once the cooking is complete.” New this year are the partnerships with Sysco Victoria and an education piece by Blade Runners Victoria on sustainability and community.

For the participating cooks, it will be an exciting opportunity to showcase their cooking skills. ”I think they’ve got some outstanding opportunities to excel and to demonstrate their skills,” says Walker-Duncan. “We’re constantly impressed and amazed at what students are capable of and these exercises are great venue and stage for them to show what they’re good at and show what they’re capable of.”

Guest seats are available on a first-come first-served basis. Contact Steve Walker-Duncan to book your seats.

Contact

Ivan Watson
Marketing & Communications Strategist
Camosun College
250-418-0700 | watsoni@camosun.ca