The main idea of the entire National Food Showdown (NFS) may be summed up in alliteration: Students show up and show off their skills at the showdown.
On the day of the most recent Ultimate Chef Wars, the competition floor at the World Trade Center, down by the bay, was apportioned into two areas.
One side was for the professional teams from restaurants, hotels and caterers, people who cooked for a living and were only there to vie for bragging rights.
Culinary arts students occupied the other side. They came from schools from as far as Dipolog City, Cebu and Baguio.
Besides winning honors for their schools, they had much to gain from this event—experience, exposure, inspiration, not to mention photo-ops with the country’s leading chefs for their Facebook postings.
“We do this more for the students,” said Restaurant 9501 chef Myrna Segismundo, the NFS overall chair and head of TV Food Chefs, which originally organized the culinary skills competitions to upgrade the food industry.
“It’s really the students that make this competition exciting,” said Peninsula Manila’s Mariano Garchitorena.
Exactly the sentiment among the chefs responsible for running the most reputable kitchens in the country but who reported for judging duty on the two days of the NFS, along with hotel denizens like Garchitorena.
Before anybody gets the wrong idea, student warriors do not battle professional warriors at the NFS. There are two separate cook-offs, one among students and the other among the pros.
This year, there were 68 competitions, some of which were live and others that were called display competitions.
While the crowd-drawers were always the bartending and flair-tending competitions, the highlight of the 6th NFS was, as in the previous years, really the Ultimate Chef Wars.
As winners of the regional Chef Wars, the teams from Asian College (NCR/Calabarzon), DMC College Foundation (Mindanao), Philippine School of Culinary Arts (Visayas) and the University of Baguio (Luzon) advanced to the NFS Ultimate Chef Wars, where they tried to out-cook one another for, if possible, the gold medal with honors. If not that, any of the gold, silver or bronze medals would do nicely. (It is heartening to know that medals are still a big deal among students.)
At the recent NFS, the cooking area was cordoned off from the rest of the gallery for the battle royale. Delegations from the culinary and tourism schools—in busloads— tried to elbow each other out for the frontline so they could cheer on their teams.
Actually, once the Allied Metal Kitchens stoves were fired, the teams became oblivious of the audience. They were, after all, given only an hour to prepare three dishes for two servings.
Although they came to the cooking area with their ingredients already prepped, the students were still under a lot of pressure to, within 60 minutes, cook and plate and present the food for judging.
As chef Jessie Sincioco said, the sense of urgency was “good training for the future when they have to get dishes out of the kitchen to impatient diners.”
And the thing about a live competition is that anything can go wrong. The electrical outlet wouldn’t work, for example, for one team that needed an electric mixer.
Another thing that could leave a rookie cook shaken, if not stirred, is that famous chefs were going around looking at what they were stewing, even spot-checking the nooks and crannies of their station.
“Everybody is judging the mise en place,” said chef Jean Pierre Migne, chair of the NFS judges’ panel. “We’re looking front and back, not just tasting.”
In other words, there were points for well-prepared workplaces, as well as for the hygienic handling of tools and ingredients. One team’s use of a muffin pan for its small ingredients was “very smart,” according to one judge.
Now the three dishes could be all hot or all cold or a combination of hot and cold. They may all be appetizers, all entrees or all desserts, or again a combination of the three. So if a team’s forte is sweets, then by all means the students could choose to make three desserts.
But here’s how the Chef Wars separates the creative cooks from those who just know how to pass food over heat: There is a main ingredient that it springs on the contestants with only a week to go before the competition, and that ingredient should be used in all three dishes.
At the recent NFS, it was wood ear mushrooms. How creative could you be with mushrooms—that was the challenge.
“Madali,” said the legendary Glenda Barretto, the Via Mare CEO. “You can do a lot with mushrooms.”
The NFS encourages thinking out of the box (or the oven), and presentation also earns a team more points, but taste is still the ultimate test.
From the DMC College team came three dishes superb enough to merit a rating of 94 percent and win the gold for culinary arts students Fritz Sheena Ann Aranas, Robert Michael Buchholz Jr. and Prince Daniel Crisostomo.
No team was awarded the silver medal.
The Philippine School of Culinary Arts team from the Visayas, consisting of Gerard June S. Ramirez, Gelle L. Gantuangco and Eva
Peachy R. Redoña, earned the bronze.
Diplomas were given to the team of Ruel I. Maravilla, Kevin Johnson E. Esteban and Effifany L. Esteban of Asian College, representing NCR/Calabarzon, and to the University of Baguio team of Sweet Lynette M. Chumawa, Aldin M. Eclarinal and Johnren V. Lazaro, representing the Luzon region.
These student were lucky to get outrageous opportunities like competing at a huge event like the NFS.
The chefs who served as judges at the NFS took the time to debrief contestants after every event so the students would go home, if not with awards, then at least with lessons that, if heeded, could one day propel them toward the bigger kitchens of the world.