Delightful taste of the future in Birmingham
Food critic Richard McComb reports on a culinary competition for young talent – staged in Birmingham.
It’s not the sort of question you expect to hear barked out at a competition where creativity and finesse are tantamount.
“Can I get a blow torch?” asks a contestant.
“Of course,” says John Penn, one of the judges. “We can get you a blow torch.”
Then another participant says: “Have you got string?”
“Yes, we’ve got string,” replies Penn.
“Ice baths?”
“Yes. Ice baths,” says Penn.
Assembled around the stoves inside one of University College Birmingham’s state-of-the-art kitchens are some of the best young chefs in the region. They have 90 minutes to prepare two main courses using a box of surprise ingredients. It’s like TV’s Masterchef, minus the shouting celeb presenters and the woman who does the irritating voice-overs.
This is the inaugural Tomorrow’s Rising Star competition, backed by Delice, an organisation that represents international food cities including Lyon, Barcelona and, yes, Birmingham.
The contest has been arranged by Birmingham’s lead officer for Delice, Ivor Marsh, of Marketing Birmingham. The idea is for Rising Star to become an annual event but Marsh doesn’t want to stop there.
That would be too easy. He hopes the success of the Birmingham cook-off will inspire Delice’s other cities – there are 17 in total – to host similar competitions.
The grand plan is for the winners from each country – representing the next generation of culinary stars – to go head-to-head to find the best young chef in the network, like a UEFA Champions League for top cooking talent. Today Birmingham, tomorrow the world.
The four finalists this year were Helen Evans, of Simpsons; Edward Attwell, of Loves (both Birmingham); and a Ludlow team, Andrew Thomas and Carl Johnson, of La Becasse.
The chefs were presented with identical food boxes, given ten minutes to prepare their menu and a similar amount of time to set up their cooking station.
The main ingredient was a Cotswold White free range chicken. There were Maris Piper potatoes, spinach, carrots, green beans, half a head of celery, one leek, onion, shallots, garlic, shitake mushrooms, tomato, unsalted butter and double cream. In the event, no one used the tomato.
The quartet had at their disposal a selection of fresh stocks – beef, chicken, veal – and red and white wine plus staples from the store including ethnic spices, pasta, herbs, flour, eggs – and blow torches.
The chefs were also given a mystery ingredient, foie gras. Mysteriously, only one – Helen Evans – used it.
