Young Guelph cooks competed in a culinary challenge almost like an episode of MasterChef Junior where people compete to attain culinary bragging rights among their peers.
The Kitchen Brigades finished off its 24-week culinary program by competing and winning silver in a national cooking competition in Montreal this past weekend.
St. James Catholic High School was the only school in Ontario to make it to the top five of the competition out of 1,500 brigades across Canada.
The culinary program started in November. The program was created by La Tablée des Chefs, an organization trying to address food insecurity in Québec. The organization put on the competition at the Institut de tourisme et d'hôtellerie du Québec in Montreal that specializes in training people in tourism, hotel and restaurant management.
Local chef and former St. James student Sam Fuda led the brigade through basic cooking skills, culinary techniques and innovative dishes. At the end of the program Fuda chose five of the 15 students to compete in the competition.
Students Andrew Shutsa, Emma Ingram, Ethan Vince, Maya Dinh and Izzy Hobé showed their interest and passion throughout the program.
Before the finals they competed in the quarterfinals over Zoom against three schools. They found out they made it to the finals in Montreal about two weeks ago.
People say winning silver hurts more than bronze, said Alicja Reynolds, hospitality teacher at St. James. “Everyone was so happy with the second place win. They really realized what a great accomplishment it was,” she said.
The brigades had three mystery ingredients they had to cook with and 55 minutes to make their dish. The ingredients teams used were chicken, asparagus and red onion.
In preparation for the competition the St. James students studied a couple of base recipes. This way they had a game plan for whatever ingredients they were given. The recipe they made was katsu curry, a Japanese chicken dish.
The stressful part of the competition was sharing ingredients with other teams and racing around the kitchen, said Maya Dinh, Grade 11 student.
In the last five minutes the team plated the dish. They were worried the curry wasn’t fully cooked but judges said it was slightly overcooked. “They loved our teamwork and how we worked really strong together,” said Hobé, Grade 11 student.
Judges and camera operators walked around the kitchen as teams raced to the finish. Dinh said it felt like a reality TV cooking show.
“Sometimes you would turn around and get jump scared by a random camera man,” she said.
When the brigade was announced as second-place winners Dinh felt relieved. To know it was over and they weren't in last place after an hour of deliberation felt great.
The team celebrated with non-alcoholic sparkling cider and dinner at St-Hubert.
Fuda surprised the brigade at the competition. Originally, he told them he couldn’t make it due to a prior commitment but his schedule opened up so he could be there to support them.
He gave the students a motivational speech and told them to remember they have trained for the competition. He gave them the confidence we needed, said Hobé.
“He was in their shoes at one point and his love for the culinary field started right at St. James. And he too was involved in some competitions when he was in high school,” said Reynolds.
Fuda was living vicariously through the students during the competition, she said.
Dinh and Hobé would make bets on who they thought would make it to the competition and they never pictured it was going to be them.
They plan on being part of the Kitchen Brigades next year. They will continue to cook at home, hone their skills and “next year, we will be number one,” said Hobé.
