Winners – Battle of the Tasman New Zealand
Youth Team NZ
Our friends across the ditch may be trying to claim the All Whites one-all draw with Slovakia as an Australasian achievement, but on Tuesday 15th June achievements of a culinary nature were squarely with New Zealand.
During the recent Fine Food New Zealand Show in Auckland, the inaugural Gourmet Pacific Challenge took place to determine culinary supremacy between New Zealand and Australia. Teams from the New Zealand and Australian Chefs Associations battled it out in the cauldron of the culinary arena to sort out trans-Tasman bragging rights; for now.
On Sunday and Monday the respective associations’ youth culinary teams competed in individual cook offs, then finished with a teams’ event before the Senior National Teams took to the arena on Tuesday.
Competition organiser, NZCA Vice-President Gary Miller, said of the events: “What made this unique was that in all the years of the respective teams they had never gone head to head and the Fine Food New Zealand show was an ideal opportunity to make this happen.” He went on to say: “The senior national teams have enjoyed a great friendship and rivalry on the international stage over many years and this event was a great opportunity to demonstrate to the industry and public of New Zealand the intensity involved in competing at this level.”
Each country had two youth teams of four young professional chefs compete and vie for honours and medals. Eventually it was New Zealand Team Two that came out on top, led by Sarah Primrose from The Pear Tree Restaurant in Kerikeri. Sarah is no stranger to the rigours and demands of culinary competitions having been a part of the New Zealand Team that won the Pacific Rim Culinary Challenge in Vanuatu last November.
The youth teams had to prepare cook and serve a five-course meal for 16 people, with three and half hours preparation time and then two and half hours of service to diners, who had bought tickets to feast on the culinary creations. The creations included tasting plates of Meadow Mushrooms, entrees of NZ King Salmon, main courses of Silver Fern Farms Lamb and New Zealand grown vegetables, and then their very own dessert creations. Competition between the youth teams was fierce and all four teams worked to very high standards, producing some amazing dishes, giving an indication that the future of cuisine in both Australia and New Zealand is in safe hands.
The senior teams took part in ‘The Battle of the Tasman’ culinary challenge and had five hours to prepare and cook a four-course meal for 70 people. What was unique about this competition was that the teams were to produce their main course from a whole pig each, provided by the Waitaki Bacon & Ham Company. Each team had a day prior to the competition to break the pig down into its primal and sub primal joints. Unlike other international culinary competitions they were not allowed any pre-prepared food items; everything had to be produced within the competition arena.
Gary Miller said of the national teams’ event: “They may be mates in the bar, but in the cauldron of the culinary arena the gloves were off, and with both teams achieving gold medal status for their efforts it was going to be a very tight and close run race to get over the finish line. For now New Zealand can claim bragging rights, but I’m sure our Australian cousins will be pulling out all the stops to reverse this when we all meet up again at Fine Food Perth in March of next year.”
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