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- The team is hard at work scaling at Stranzl kitchens on October 20, in preparation for their first competition day.
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- Carly Bergshoeff carefully portions butter.
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- Robbie Aggarwal prepares chanterelle mushrooms.
Junior Culinary Team Canada is turning up the heat.
For the first time since they arrived in Germany, the team spent October 20 busy in the practice kitchen, preparing for the Culinary Olympics.
Amounts of vegetables, cups of flour, even grams of salt were measured, as they dedicated the day to scaling – the task of working out the ingredients they will be using on their competition days, to the extent that the rules permit.
Chef professor and team coach Olaf Mertens said the team was 100% focused on preparing for their first competition day on Saturday, October 22.
“Saturday is the first round of the world’s first premiere of this competition. We are among six countries that will be setting the bar,” he said. “And we will set the bar.”
The process of preparing the ingredients for a competition takes the entire team four to five hours to complete, said team manager Craig Youdale. While all team members can jump in for the “busy work” such as peeling potatoes or apples, each team member is assigned to a very specific role and completes precise tasks pertaining to the role they must perform on competition day.
“They have done this now so many times that they have a bit of a routine down,” Youdale said.
“This is our first day hitting the ground running with some scaling. We finalized all of our product yesterday and we are finishing up gathering all of our ingredients,” said team captain Ben Lillico. “We are really excited to respect that product today and fold it into our program as we scale.”
The team will prepare an edible buffet for 12 at Saturday’s competition when they will work in two different kitchens. They will have four hours to cook and produce all the products they will make – the terrines, sides sauce, garnishes, finger foods, desserts – before they transfer to the second kitchen.
Apart from a quick walk-through, Lillico noted that they won’t see the Culinary Olympics competition kitchen until they compete for the first time on Saturday, but he remains confident.
“We’ve practiced so many times in so many different environments that it’s second nature at this point,” he said.
Key dates
Opening ceremonies: October 21.
Competition Day 1 (edible buffet): Oct. 22
Competition Day 2 (three-course luncheon) on Oct. 24
Closing ceremonies: Oct. 26.
Cheer on Team Canada
Follow the team’s progress on twitter at @ncjrculinary, on facebook at @jrculinary, Instagram @jrculinarycanada, and on their website ncjrculinaryteamcanada.ca
Send text and video messages of encouragement to Junior Culinary Team Canada via social media using the hashtag #NCtasteforgold, #NCjrCulinaryTeamCA or #myncstory.
