Elgin Community College will set the stage for some of the country’s finest chefs next week as they duke it out in aprons and oven mitts to earn a spot on the 2004 U.S. Culinary Olympic team, one of cooking’s crown jewels.
For the college’s award-winning culinary management program, selection as host is a prize in itself.
ECC instructors see the honor as a vindication of their efforts to turn the cooking school, which is often overshadowed by its counterparts closer to Chicago, into a world-class operation.
“We don’t get the publicity that Kendall College [in Evanston] or the Illinois Institute of Art [in Chicago] does. But we’re proud that of all the schools they could have picked, they ended up picking us,” said chef Michael Zema, an instructor at the school for 20 years who will help coordinate the Olympic tryouts.
“We’d like to think it means people are taking notice.”
For two days next week, eight professional chefs from the Midwest will turn the school’s kitchens into a testing ground. The same will be done at culinary schools in Denver, New York and Kentucky.
The finalists will have a showdown at Chicago’s McCormick Place in May during the National Restaurant Association convention. Then a final team of 11 chefs will be picked to go to Germany to do battle at the International Culinary Olympics, a quadrennial event that typically sets world dining trends for years to come.
Once the team is selected, the chefs will need at least two years to train and study together, learning to bond like any Olympic team, said Christine Rodenbaugh, spokeswoman for the American Culinary Federation, which sponsors the U.S. team.
“In the cooking world this tryout is a major deal,” Zema said. “They’re preparing six months for this day. You don’t just come in and start cooking.”
On Tuesday the chefs will prepare their ingredients, and all day Wednesday they will cook, preparing appetizer platters and tasting plates for a panel of master chefs and former Culinary Olympians.
The entries will be judged on flavor, texture, presentation and nutritional value, as well as chef intangibles such as teamwork and coolness under pressure.
Then to shake things up a bit, the chefs will undergo an “Iron Chef”-style event called the Mystery Basket, in which they have four hours to make a five-course meal on the spot from whatever foods they are given.
“That’s the ultimate sign of a good cook, when they can just go into a cellar, no cookbook, and just do it by ear,” Zema said.
Eight of ECC’s best culinary students will work as apprentices for the competing chefs, Zema said. “To have that caliber of chef practicing at our school, I can’t think of a better learning opportunity for our students,” he said.
The 30-year-old culinary program, which has 250 students, trains people to cook anywhere from cafeterias to gourmet restaurants. It has an on-site student-run restaurant and a renowned visiting chefs program. And after a $1.6 million addition is finished in 2003, the school will have classroom demonstration stages that use satellite and Internet hookups.
The program tries to give its students as many learning opportunities as possible, including several programs in Europe. Two years ago, a class prepared dinner for all the members of Congress and their families in Washington.
“It’s the best way to turn a student into a working chef, to see the very best at work,” Zema said. “And this competition is bringing the very best right here to Elgin.”
