The Northern Powerhouse may be best known for its strong sports influence, but last week the city played host to an internationally acclaimed gastronomic competition which celebrated the talents of promising young chefs.
In a generously lit classroom on the top floor of The Manchester College’s Fielden Campus, photos of culinary delights cooked by pupils plaster the walls.
Academic certificates are neatly encased behind glass cabinets in every corner of the room and a meticulous sense of expectation wafts through the air.
The scene was far from your average food technology class.
Instead, the higher-education college welcomed one of the most prestigious events in the culinary calendar – the 40th International Young Chef competition, organised by world leading gastronomic society the Chaîne des Rotisseurs.
The competition, which saw 24 young aspiring chefs from all over the world compete to showcase their culinary skills, was won by Germany’s Christoph Eckert, who, like his fellow finalists, qualified for the final by winning the national title in his own country.
The whole affair seemed generously flavoured with a hint of Master Chef. You almost expected Michel Roux Junior to spring out from behind one of the certificate cabinets and impatiently tuck into some of the tasting.
Each finalist – who had to be under the age of 27 – faced the task of creating a three-course meal using mandatory ingredients chosen from a mystery ‘market basket’. These included rabbit, live crab, cooking apples and cheese – all of which had been randomly selected.
This was accompanied by a variety of other store cupboard ingredients that each finalist could optionally incorporate into their three dishes.
A three-course menu had to be drawn within half an hour, after which contestants had a further three and a half hours to cook and assemble their culinary masterpiece, before presenting them to a nine-strong judging panel, which comprised of all internationally renowned Michelin star chefs who were decked out for the scene in their double-breasted kitchen whites.
The task of having to sample 24 crab starters, 24 rabbit mains and 24 apple-based desserts may have appeared as a monotonous and somewhat endless task for some, but at such an elite level of gastronomic art, it is the very essence of variety that the judges thrive on.
“It’s not a boring job,” said Al Crisci, a member of the panel. “These people are coming from all over the world and it’s amazing to see the different takes they have on these ingredients.”
The distant clattering of plates and the clinking of kitchen utensils from the adjacent kitchen would occasionally pierce the intermittent silence that would fall among the panel, whose faces were often engrossed in deep concentration.
Beneath their hushed mutterings to one another, a scratchy scribble of a pen on a clipboard could be distinctly heard.
But in spite of the somewhat heightened atmosphere present, the competition boils down to promoting the culinary talent of aspiring young chefs and it is the simple ingredient of ‘giving something back’ which makes it so moreish for the judges, who all left the hustle and bustle of their own Michelin-starred restaurants from across the world to voluntarily judge the competition.
“It’s nice to see the young talent coming through and be here to support them,” said Crisci, adding that the competition could well discover the next big young star.
“It’s fun,” agreed Vic Laws, who is a Chaîne representative of Great Britain. “I’ve worked as a chef for 36 years and it’s about putting something back into the industry for young people.”
The event, which was being held in the UK for the first time, allowed for a real sense of international camaraderie to be savoured. This extended even to the students of Manchester College, who were giving the young chefs a helping hand with their dishes by whisking them out of the kitchen to the judges for tasting.
Maxine Gunning, Head of Department for Service and Retail Industries at The Manchester College, praised the inspiring ethos of the competition.
“This has been a valuable experience and one our own students have enjoyed being part of – helping support in the kitchen, prepping the secret ingredients for the ‘black boxes’ and working front of house.”
Many youths under the age of 27 wouldn’t know where to start when dealing with a crawly crab for dinner, (perhaps those at a tender adolescent age might even ‘dress’ the thing literally). Fewer would be able to contemplate the idea of planning and executing a three-course meal in such little time as Manchester’s Young Chefs did.
In an age where an omnipresent fast food culture increasingly undermines national gastronomic traditions, the Chaîne des Rotisseurs is a living example of just how important it is to actively encourage and nurture young talent in the kitchen.
That said, maybe the Chaîne judges will be staying away from crab for a while…
