Competition: Education and Trendsetting

By John Kinsella, CMC, CCE, WGMC, AAC

I remember my first visit to Hotel Olympia in London, England, in 1958 as an apprentice competing in my first hot-food competition. I was awed by the magnificent displays by all the top chefs in England, and, by their workmanship, they showed me what I would have to do to become a master chef. The message I received from them was, compete to learn.

We are in the biggest competition year in our history, and I can see only progress from when I started as a competitor. This month, Aidan Murphy, CMC, AAC, is competing for the Global Chef title during the inaugural Global Chefs Challenge at the World Association of Chefs Societies Congress in Dubai. Also, Keriann Von Raesfeld, an ACF student-culinarian member, will represent the United States in the Hans Bueschkens Junior Chefs Challenge. In October, ACF Culinary Team USA will compete in Germany at the International Culinary Art Exhibition (IKA). All of these dedicated professionals spend many hours planning and practicing to reach the pinnacle of craftsmanship so that they can bring back top honors from international competitions.

What does it take to be such a competitor? Let me share my experiences and those of my fellow competitors to show how you can reach the level of these great chefs and cooks. Truly, when we speak about competition, we speak about dedication and commitment to the task at hand. I remember in 1998, when Team Midwest went to the World Cup in Luxembourg, team members did an enormous amount of practice just to be able to compete at the regional level. The chefs developed their programs, presented them, listened to critiques, and went back and perfected them for the next team meeting. In the 14 months leading up to the competition, we met every month, and we also did fundraising for the team.

Some people think that raising money for culinary teams is easy. I think not. It is extremely difficult because of the diminishing dollars our sponsors have to give. I know for a fact that Edward Leonard, CMC, AAC, Team USA manager, has spent a lot of his time raising money for the team. This year he is faced with an even more difficult challenge, because when the budget was developed, the euro was approximately 78 cents to the dollar, and now it is $1.56. This affects the number of dollars available to spend on our team, and it increases our need to raise funds.

My board and I have discussed at length how we can help our team be properly funded. We concluded that if every ACF member gave a tax-deductible donation of $10 to the team fund, we would meet funding goals that will allow Team USA to successfully compete this year. Some of you would ask why you need to invest in Team USA or the members who will be competing in Dubai. Quite simply, it is important that we keep abreast of worldwide culinary trends and continue to be a leader in new cuisine styles and trends.

In our business, when the economy starts to go down, the first part to be cut is research and development, and, sadly, that is a fact of life that a lot of us go through during a recession. But what Team USA will produce at the IKA this year will set the trends for our cuisines in the next four years. I remember when the 1984 Team USA returned from the IKA how quickly culinary trends changed to the team’s styles. In 1992, the U.S. team introduced the first tasting of cold food, and in 1996 through 2004, a whole new style of cooking and presentation was developed by each U.S. team.

What I'm saying is that we need to put our money where our mouth is and invest in Team USA and all the other events that bring us worldwide recognition. The team is the best marketing tool we have, not only because it represents the best of us, but because it inspires our young cooks to stay involved with ACF and creates the next generation of the greatest chefs and cooks in world. Just look at the positions our past team members hold. They are the leaders in our industry. Why? Because they gave everything they had to exemplify the great American chef.

So, let's put our hands in our pockets and give that $10 to the fund, because we will all benefit from Team USA's efforts. It will keep us on the cutting-edge of the next generation of world cuisines.