Iron Chef: Fanshawe style
It's a cooking show that has become so popular that even those not naturally skilled in the art know of it- and now Fanshawe students are holding their own competition.
Yes, Iron Chef is at Fanshawe - kind of.
The competition is pitting students from a variety of the campuses culinary related programs against each other in a search for the ultimate Iron Chef Fanshawe team.
“It's essentially a take on the famous television show,” explained Scott Wesseling, a chef with the school of tourism and hospitality. “It's an opportunity to get the students together. Our end goal is to, in the next five-years, get a competition team together that we can send out to George Brown, Humber and even Niagara to compete and showcase our students unique abilities and take on today's modern cuisine.”
The main theme behind an Iron Chef competition is the black box, or the unknown ingredient that the competitors have to incorporate into each of the four courses they have to prepare for judging. According to Wesseling, they've been given a list of ingredients to study, one of which will ultimately be the ‘secret' ingredient, which is how the real competition works as well.
“I have three judges,” continued Wesseling. “I have vice president Joy Warkentin; Chef Doug McCoppen, from North Restaurant; and one of our own chef's, Sue Fisher judging the exact same way as Iron Chef on originality, creativity and flavour. Then there will be a panel of three floor judges who are marking the mechanics of how they got to their final dish - so sanitation, knife skills, cuts - more technical as opposed to the product.”
The winners will not only take part in a medal ceremony, but they'll walk away with prizes that have been donated to the competition from not only the college, including athletics, The Out Back Shack and Oasis, but also London hotels and restaurants.
“I'm in food and beverage,” said Jessica Carreiro, one of the students participating in the competition. “So we haven't really cooked anything, most of the stuff we've done is mainly salads, pancakes and we're learning pasta this week. So I haven't done much cooking, but it sounded like it's going to be fun.
“I'm not there so much for the competition though, I'm more there to learn, just to experience it really.”
And the strengths from each of the programs are expected to help play off each other in creating the perfect, and authentic, experience for the participants.
“The two cultures, front of house and back of house, have to come together and work as a team,” stressed Wesseling. “One can't work without the other. So I didn't see a point in organizing this event if I couldn't showcase my own students' abilities.
“We have four teams of four going at it in one kitchen, so it's going to be a pretty good day of events that's for sure.”
The Iron Chef competition will be taking place on Saturday March 15 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in Saffrons dining room, building ‘A', at the London campus. Students interested in watching can do so then.
Yes, Iron Chef is at Fanshawe - kind of.
The competition is pitting students from a variety of the campuses culinary related programs against each other in a search for the ultimate Iron Chef Fanshawe team.
“It's essentially a take on the famous television show,” explained Scott Wesseling, a chef with the school of tourism and hospitality. “It's an opportunity to get the students together. Our end goal is to, in the next five-years, get a competition team together that we can send out to George Brown, Humber and even Niagara to compete and showcase our students unique abilities and take on today's modern cuisine.”
The main theme behind an Iron Chef competition is the black box, or the unknown ingredient that the competitors have to incorporate into each of the four courses they have to prepare for judging. According to Wesseling, they've been given a list of ingredients to study, one of which will ultimately be the ‘secret' ingredient, which is how the real competition works as well.
“I have three judges,” continued Wesseling. “I have vice president Joy Warkentin; Chef Doug McCoppen, from North Restaurant; and one of our own chef's, Sue Fisher judging the exact same way as Iron Chef on originality, creativity and flavour. Then there will be a panel of three floor judges who are marking the mechanics of how they got to their final dish - so sanitation, knife skills, cuts - more technical as opposed to the product.”
The winners will not only take part in a medal ceremony, but they'll walk away with prizes that have been donated to the competition from not only the college, including athletics, The Out Back Shack and Oasis, but also London hotels and restaurants.
“I'm in food and beverage,” said Jessica Carreiro, one of the students participating in the competition. “So we haven't really cooked anything, most of the stuff we've done is mainly salads, pancakes and we're learning pasta this week. So I haven't done much cooking, but it sounded like it's going to be fun.
“I'm not there so much for the competition though, I'm more there to learn, just to experience it really.”
And the strengths from each of the programs are expected to help play off each other in creating the perfect, and authentic, experience for the participants.
“The two cultures, front of house and back of house, have to come together and work as a team,” stressed Wesseling. “One can't work without the other. So I didn't see a point in organizing this event if I couldn't showcase my own students' abilities.
“We have four teams of four going at it in one kitchen, so it's going to be a pretty good day of events that's for sure.”
The Iron Chef competition will be taking place on Saturday March 15 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. in Saffrons dining room, building ‘A', at the London campus. Students interested in watching can do so then.
