For the spring semester of 2020, Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute introduced the Competition Fundamentals major elective course to the Culinary Arts program on the Caldwell Campus in Hudson. The five students enrolled in the class, Zoee Falder, Misty Lail, Erica Setzer, Emily Miller and Soledad Rodriguez, prepare meals featuring different main course ingredients, such as lobster, pork loin and tofu.
At the beginning of the semester, Culinary Arts Program Director Keith Andreasen decides and informs students of the main food items for each class session. Each week, the students prepare a meal and are graded by a panel of judges based on a shared list of standards. The group of judges changes from week to week and is comprised of college employees and community members.
During a recent class, students prepared racks of lamb. Dishes varied from herb- and panko-crusted lamb cooked in a skillet and finished in an oven to a Moroccan-spiced lamb. Two students used the Sous Vide method, which circulates water at a desired temperature, keeping the meat at that temperature for up to eight hours. Each student creates accompanying side dishes or sauces to complement their entree.
“They all had such a unique take on their food,” said guest judge Pat Pritchard, who works in the college TRIO program and looks forward to volunteering as a judge. “Oh, I don’t have lunch after this. The program has made some wonderful chefs.”
Competitors arrange small tasting plates at their individual workstations. After a short explanation of each dish, judges take turns tasting each student’s creation. The judges provide feedback for each student on a score sheet, which uses multiple categories including ingredients, appearance, presentation and, of course, flavor. Students are encouraged to use feedback from the prior week to improve their future dishes.
“Overall, from last week to this week, the dishes improved by a factor of 10,” Guest judge and local pastor Jeff Burkhimer said while comparing the lamb entrees to the previous week, which featured lobster. “They used multiple cooking techniques and created great flavor.”
An exciting experience for students is the challenge of working with new foods.
“So far, it’s been pretty fun experiencing stuff we haven’t worked with before,” said Erica Setzer, of Hickory. “I enjoyed when we had lobster last week with sweet corn waffles and spicy maple syrup. I’m looking forward to working with pork loin.”
The course offers a unique experience to students in the Culinary Arts program, one that challenges their cooking skills as well as their creativity.
Morganton student Emily Miller said, “I’ve never been in any competition classes before, but I wanted to try something different. I thought it would be like (the TV show) Chopped, but I like it a little bit more because you get to plan, look at different videos and techniques.”
Culinary Arts student Zoee Falder of Newton, who works at Carabba’s in Hickory, is taking the class because it is new and she enjoys getting to work with items she’s never tried before.
“I’m looking forward to tofu,” she said. “I’m planning to make it into a dessert.”
Andreasen said the course will be offered each spring. For more information on CCC&TI’s Culinary Arts program, call Andreasen at 828-726-2478.