Mexico Wins Student Cook-off At Grcc's Secchia Institute For Culinary Education

A two-student team from Mexico garnered top honors at the second Nation's Cup International Culinary Competition held Oct. 18-20, 2007, at the newly dedicated Secchia Institute for Culinary Education at Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC).

Carla Adriana Buitron Staufert, who is enrolled at the Instituto Culinario de M�xico in Monterrey, and Anibal Rodriguez Perez, who attends the school's Puebla campus, earned highest combined scores in the three-day competition that also hosted student teams from Barbados, Canada, Scotland and the United States. Students from a sixth country, Chile, defended the title won at the first Nation's Cup competition in 2005.

The competition embraced a variety of cooking and service platforms that assessed skills via a mystery basket of ingredients for execution of appetizers, salads and several entr�es built upon the principal proteins of poultry, fish, shellfish, meat and game. The three days of the competition were capped by a full-service dinner for more than 100 paying guests, at which each student team prepared a single course.

"The Nation's Cup allows the student to learn new culinary techniques and cutting-edge international plate presentation, as well as provides cultural exchange with other students," said GRCC chef-instructor and competition chair Angus Campbell. "The judges look for the team whose members interact together well in the kitchen, have superior culinary technique, produce clean, neat, flavorful food, and are respectful to their peers on the competition stage. It is an exciting and nerve-racking time, but the friendships built, the confidence gained and the medals won last for a lifetime."

Competing students cited exposure to new ingredients and foodways and diverse cultures as the chief benefit of representing their homelands in the Nation's Cup. Staufert and Perez, who had not met prior to their arrival in Grand Rapids, said the value of teamwork was the greatest lesson they took home from the competition.

The dream of Randy Sahajdack, director of the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education, is for every foodservice student at GRCC to cook abroad as part of his or her training to acquire a more-global cooking perspective. Not every student has such resources, however. According to Sahajdack, the Nation's Cup International Culinary Competition brings the world to GRCC students, instead.

The third Nation's Cup International Culinary Competition will be held in October 2009 at the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education at GRCC. Campbell said he plans to double international representation and accommodate student teams from 12 countries.

The Secchia Culinary Institute-formerly the Hospitality Education Division-at Grand Rapids Community College was founded in 1980 to provide unparalleled culinary, baking/pastry and hospitality-management education to students throughout North America. Grand Rapids Community College, established in 1914, offers liberal-arts and workforce-development degrees, classes and workshops. Student enrollment on the urban campus for both credit and non-credit courses is approximately 26,000 this year.