Culinary programs bring home more honors

March 17, 2009

A group of Cincinnati State graduates who are now in the culinology program at the University of Cincinnati have won top honors in a prestigious national competition.

The team – consisting of Midwest Culinary Institute graduates John Parsons, Christian Serrato, Andrew Scholle and Robert Coltrane – garnered a nearly perfect score to win the Research Chef’s Association Student Culinology Competition for 2009. Their faculty advisor was Chef Christopher Keegan, a faculty advisor and adjunct instructor at the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati.

The RCA prize is just one of several honors recently accorded MCI students, graduates and faculty members.

The RCA award marks the third time in the last three years that teams from UC’s College of Applied Sciences culinology program (which is offered in conjunction with MCI) have medaled in the event. They won a silver in 2008 and a first-place gold in 2007.
Only three student teams qualified for this year’s final competition at the RCA Annual Conference and Culinology Expo, which was held March 4-8 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

This was a competition that judged considerably more than kitchen skills.

Each team was required during the qualifying round to submit a proposal detailing their selection of entree and side dishes. They also had to describe how to prepare the dishes, manufacture them in volume, package them and store them for prolonged periods. And it all had to be at a cost that enabled dinner for two at a retail price of $9.99.

The UC team came up with a package they dubbed “Texas Prairie Duo.’’ It featured beef in a special sweet and tangy sauce, coupled with fire roasted vegetables and ruby red rice.
The competition in Dallas had essentially two components. The team not only had to prepare their meal in the kitchen and win the taste-test judgment, they also had to serve the frozen version – and make sure it held up to the freshly-cooked dishes.

One of the secrets to the team’s success, according to Scholle, was the sauce. The fresh preparation called for braising the beef in its juices along with a secret Texas ingredient - Dr. Pepper. “Most folks don't know that Dr. Pepper was invented in Waco, Texas," he remarked.
The team also won points for its packaging, which featured dramatic graphics and a sleeve that enabled the dinners to be drawn from each side. "Our packaging would sell in any market,’’ said Coltrane, an alternate on the team. The team drew on the expertise of Kacie Snyder, a recent DAAP graduate from UC and freelance designer, for the package design.

There were some unexpected challenges en route to the gold medal.

For example, the UC group, along with the other two teams, discovered that the ovens in the kitchen used for the competition did not have any temperature indicators on the dials.
"John saved the day!" Serrato, the team leader, said. "He managed to spot that the beef was about to burn and got it out of the oven and transferred to another pot before the liquid boiled off. Fortunately, the cameras and judges were looking the other way at the time. LSU wasn't so lucky. Their kitchen fire was on video and became the replay hit of the conference.

Then, a scheduling problem caused the judges to expect the team's dinners to be ready 30 minutes before they were actually due. The Cincinnati team hurried the meals to the judges but was penalized for being eight minutes late. One judge later reported that these were the only points deducted.

"This team works very well together and from what I could see things went really smooth in the kitchen," said Keegan, the team advisor.

He attributed at least some of his students’ success to their educational background. "With our students spending two years concentrating on chef skills, co-op work experience, and two years of food science, our curriculum defines Culinology.’’ he said.

In addition to a gold medal, the Cincinnati culinology team came home with a check for $5,000. And those weren’t the only honors. Serrato was awarded the Michele Block Memorial Fund Scholarship, and Dan Proctor, a fellow UC culinology student, received the Bill “Pops’’ Hahne Memorial Fund Scholarship.

"Medaling in all three years of the competition is a tribute to the discipline and rigors of our curriculum and the skills and talents of our instructors," said Rajiv Soman, department head overseeing the Culinary Arts Program at UC's College of Applied Science. "Our students’ excellence in national competitions firmly catapults our program into the national limelight."
And that limelight just keeps getting brighter.

Consider:
 

• Sarah Huskey, president of the MCI Student Chapter of the American Culinary Federation, was presented the “Student Culinarian of the Year’’ award at the American Culinary Federation of Greater Cincinnati scholarship dinner in early March.
   
• Chef John Kinsella, CMC, will be inducted into the Cordon d’Or Society Hall of Fame on May 20. In February he was inducted into the Chicago Culinary Hall of Fame.
   
• Chef Kinsella was recently presented with the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster's Shield and pin for his services to the U.S. Army Culinary Team and for helping the Army to develop an apprenticeship program for its soldiers. In 2011 the Army will be responsible for cook training and apprenticeship development for all the branches of U.S. Armed Forces – an estimated over 8000 trainees per year. The apprentices will be able to take Cincinnati State courses to gain credit for their certification process through the American Culinary Federation Certification Commission and the American Culinary Federation Accreditation Commission.