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Ready, set, cook!High school students compete for scholarships, bragging rights in statewide culinary championship
While Dylan Huett, a junior at Wilson Central High School in Lebanon, Tenn., was busy cutting up the carrots, mushrooms and chicken thighs for his soup, judges Marney Lenahan and Ed Butler were in a nearby classroom picking apart his salad dish. Later, the two experts would taste his entree, a chicken breast with broccoli, rice pilaf, glazed carrots and mushrooms.
In the long hallway separating the kitchen and classroom at Culinard, the Virginia College culinary school, were a couple dozen professional chefs and Virginia College students in paper hats and chef coats serving as judges or timekeepers for the competition. They peered fishbowl-like at the young students/competitors through large glass windows, making note of every slice, dice, chop and cut the would-be cooks made.
Nicole Roning, a teacher at Wilson Central, was the facilitator of the competition.
"Forty minutes," she yelled at one point. "You have 40 minutes in the soup round."
Across the hall, Lenahan and Butler seated themselves at a table and did a visual scan of the salad in front of them. Another six salads waited to be judged on a nearby table.
They were the tasting judges for this session, and they worked through a checklist of nearly 30 categories, scoring for things like appearance, appropriateness, technique and taste, as well as professionalism, cleanliness, cross-contamination and safety.
"I would have tossed it and cut the lettuce into smaller pieces," Butler said of the salad.
He made similar comments later about another student's chicken.
"I don't want to beat them up, but at some point it is going to be eaten, right?" he said to Lenahan. "People want food-friendly bites. They don't want to wrestle with their protein."
They had as many positive comments as negative ones.
"I like the flavor," said Lenahan. "That is good chicken soup.
"It is very simple, but it has everything it is supposed to have."
Huett was one of seven high school students from across the state competing in the early round of the SkillsUSA State Culinary Competition. Another group of students was set to compete later Tuesday afternoon, and the Commercial Baking Competition also was held in the kitchen/classroom at Culinard near Eastgate Town Center in Brainerd.
The Chattanooga area was represented by students from Cleveland, Bradley Central and Ooltewah high schools. The state winner goes on to compete at the national level in Louisville, Ky., in June. SkillsUSA offers championships in a variety of events including cooking, auto mechanics and crime forensics, and students compete for scholarship money.
The students qualified for the state competition through local contests. The students were provided a list of items they could choose for their dishes well in advance. This year's ingredients included chicken, carrots, mushrooms and lettuce. Winners were announced Wednesday evening during a banquet at the Chattanooga Convention Center. Check online for the winners.
Judges for the culinary competition included chefs from around Tennessee and North Georgia, as well as a representative of the Georgia Health Department, who was there to check for cleanliness. Among the local chefs/judges were Bill Wright, lead Culinard instructor at Virginia College; Dao Le, executive chef at DoubleTree Hotel; and Brad Trewitt, executive chef at Chattanooga Golf and Country Club.
Butler is with U.S. Foodservice in Nashville and Lenahan with the Whitfield Career Academy in Dalton, Ga.
They were judging students primarily on their techniques and skills, but safety was clearly a priority as well. In fact, one of the salads and two of the soups were not even tasted because of cross-contamination issues where the cook used one knife or cutting board to prep multiple items.
Even though the judges didn't taste the dish, resulting in no score for that category, they were judged in the other criteria. In fact, the non-tasted salad got high marks for appearance.
"It is very important that the students are aware and follow proper technique," Wright said.
Huett said he began prepping for the competition months ago.
"Like, every day at school," he said.
"First, I learned how to make everything, then I worked on timing and how to get faster and get consistent."
Huett, who works in a fast-food restaurant back home in Lebanon, said he hopes to continue working in the food industry. He said he felt good about his work on Tuesday because of his preparation.
"It was a little stressful because of the judges being there, but I felt prepared."
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.