Frederick Oh wins "Culinary World Cup"

[Jinmyo]

"Richmond Hill chef Frederick Oh has once again helped put Canada at the head of the international table. Mr. Oh, who runs the Richmond Hill Culinary Arts Centre, and his team of chefs recently won bronze at the Culinary World Cup, a competition held every four years in Luxembourg."

[g.johnson]

Not to disparage Chef Oh, but he was competing against teams from East Lothian and Wales and he was beaten by the US Army.

[Jinmyo]

Yup. But hey, it's a Canadian news item. They're all like that.

[Coop]

Chefs that run real restaurants have no time for these phony ego building competitions. The chefs involved are usually union workers, government employees or both. The only reward a real chef wants is happy customers and some money in the bank at the end of the month.

[Jinmyo]

Well, not to impugn the motivations of any one who actually does these competitions, I don't really understand it.

It's not as if you get dry ice and Chairman Kaga and to open ten cryovacs of foie and bring them home after the show.

[Coop]

I was going to say something wise hear but I can't stop starring at Jinmyo's avatar. HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElp!

[cabrales]

Coop -- Did you know Jinmyo used to have your current Avatar (unsure if sizing of photo the same)?

[GordonCooks]

I've twice dined on meals prepared by Robert Sulatycky at the Four Seasons. Both were outstanding. Sulatycky was a Team Canada leader at the Bocuse D'or. He finished higher than any other North American Chef has.

Edited December 20, 2002 by GordonCooks (log)

[Coop]

Gordoncooks: Now you have made the one argument that may change my mind. I ate at Bacchus in the Wedgewood while Sulatycky was chef. It was fabulous. So I geuss I must take a step back from my position. please add the word usually to my previous post. BTW. They are still doing a good job at Bacchus. Fueled by the time spent there by chef S. Now I must change my avatar. I thought I was being so fresh.

[Basildog]

so who actualy won?

[Steve Klc]

Some info about competitions and a possible rant coming. Nothing like folks tainting competitions with a broad brush who have neither the skill, courage nor experience to speak knowledgeably of them. Remember, I warned you to avert your eyes.

First off, the initial article linked to was not a very well-written one. "Winning bronze" in competition parlance--especially ACF-style competitions as this seems to be--could mean one person won a bronze medal in one sub-category, say for a garde manger platter--while the overall team did poorly. One other link above said the overall team medals were Switzerland, USA, Germany I think-which of course is another give away that this was an ACF competition, because it seems the French weren't there competing. ACF competitions usually involve the kind of chefs who list initials after their names, like CMC, CEC, etc. The French--and those French-leaning anti-ACF artistic American chefs like me--don't do the "ACF" thing--and the only initials that count for the French are MOF. This event and the Culinary Olympics in Germany exist on a parallel, lesser in my opinion, but separate track to the competitions the French DO deign to compete in: the Bocuse d'Or, the Pastry World Cup in Lyon and the US World and National Pastry Championships (now in Vegas.)

A US team which got some mention in one of those links is the Army team--and even by mundane, conservative ACF standards--there are far better ACF teams which could have been sent by the US. I've met many of these competing ACF chefs and pastry chefs and some are quite talented, quite dedicated to their real jobs in restaurants, hotels or teaching. Many of them are essentially unknown, out of the glossy media limelight, stuck in foodservice jobs somewhere at country clubs or resorts. Granted, Coop, it is hard to compete if you are a "real" restaurant chef, but some do. Some run restaurants within hotels, the Ritz chain is a good example of this, and as a result of that structure and staff, are supported by their hotel in national and international competitions.

Another thing--sometimes for these ACF competitions there are "National" teams--which are the only ones eligible for the top medals--and then a country could also send lesser "regional" teams if the teams raise enough money--which usually consist of chefs who failed to make the cut for the "best" team--the National team. I'm unsure whether the team from Ontario was the only Canadian team competing, but it would be interesting to know what winning bronze actually meant and also know whether there were other Canadian teams and how this team did in comparison. Again, the article was vague--but in any event, Oh and his team deserve tons of credit for taking a risk, for flying halfway across the world, and trying to work under time pressure in a strange environment.

Bronze itself may also be misleading--bronze does not necessarily mean third place--in ACF style competitions, you win Gold/Silver or Bronze as judged against some hypothetical objective standard of perfection--so it is possible for several teams or competitors within the same category to win "Gold." The highest Gold wins first, second-highest gold second place, and so on. It is also possible the first place competitor may only have done well enough to earn a bronze--yet he would "win" the competition. In an ACF competition, winning a Bronze actually sucks. My guess is the overall team winners the Swiss, USA and Germans won slews of Golds each. (In my very first ACF competition I "won" two Gold medals based on this supposed standard of perfection and said, how hard could this ACF stuff really be?)

Why do chefs compete? It's simultaneously a way to learn and to give back, so others might learn. But why question the personal motivation of all these un-named un-real others Coop? Why question whether someone goes to cooking school, stages in France or takes their first job working in a Howard Johnsons? The answers can be layered and textured or as simple as they might seem on the surface. Why did I compete in my first ACF competition? Well, I was 2 years out of school, had experienced the daily grind of doing the same thing over and over again and wanted to test myself against my peers--to see if I could handle the pressure and for an excuse to display some creative work--and have some judges with much more experience than me comment on it. Ego? Sure, but I knew I was good, I wanted to start seeing how good and have that determined objectively. I was never afraid of being judged by others--or to fail publicly--and maybe that is why I have no problems working as a restaurant chef or being judged by critics. Every dish is judged by every diner--and every dish should be the best that it can be in a given situation--and your skills and creativity are what you have to draw on when stuff goes wrong, when ingredients are missing, when time is running out. All of that is re-inforced by the elite competitions. Plus, competing is a great way to network, land sponsors, get consulting gigs, to get you out of your own kitchen, to travel, to learn how to conduct yourself in media interviews and to engage the world at large--not bad things for a chef. You also win money.

Now, looking past how it may be hard to understand why chefs compete, and toward Coop's comment that no real or really talented chefs (or presumably pastry chefs) "compete" at these type of things or that these events are phony or about ego--well, tell that to the very real pastry chefs of Le Cirque, Cafe Boulud, the Bellagio, the St. Regis, The Phoenician Resort, to name just a few off the top of my head from 2001 or this year, 2002, with the two "American" French MOF's who work at the top two elite Vegas hotels who just won $50,000 at the World Pastry Team Championships in Vegas, beating two "French" French MOF's team France sent over, who came in second and the Belgians who came in third. These guys are among the best in the world--don't take my word for it, if you knew what high quality pastry work was you'd know these guys rocked simply by looking at the work--let alone tasting it--and that that work might only be surpassed possibly by a few of their judges, which included the likes of Alberto Adria and Olivier Bajard. (They served as coaches of their respective teams, Spain and France.) Coop--do you think Alberto Adria would get involved, coaching Spanish chefs who are phony?

(A timeout--MOF is an elite French designation bestowed upon only a handful of French chefs, pastry chefs and chocolatiers every few years by other MOF's to recognize their supreme skills and ability in their craft. It is held to be the most serious culinary honor in their world. It is the ultimate good old boy network--lessening somewhat in importance now--but still an elite and exclusive club. Some world-class chefs, like Roland Mesnier the current White House pastry chef, strived and competed their whole lives to earn the MOF title and failed, repeatedly. Now he's a bitter older pastry chef waiting to retire. One of the best--if not the most well-rounded--of younger American pastry chefs, Jacquy Pfeiffer in Chicago, tried out for the MOF two years ago and didn't make it. To the French, trying out for the MOF is seen as the ultimate "competition," so the fact that there were 5 or 6 MOF's lured back to compete in this recent US Pastry Championship is really quite amazing on a global level. And, all those guys run patisseries or shops back home--they don't have a soft, cushy life.)

Actually, citing ego at all is a bit clueless, a canard--alot of real-world non-competition cooking is certainly about ego (I know chefs who do volunteer work out of ego and the press clippings it would generate) chefs and restaurateurs "compete" daily, and these formal competitive events can be as personal, as rewarding, as political as any daily grind, about setting goals and putting yourself under pressure and then accomplishing more than you thought possible--except on a larger stage, with thousands of people watching you work live and filmed by television crews the entire time. There is a frisson that exists when you are out there alone for the world to see--working live and all your mistakes and skills and weaknesses are visible in real time--and then captured by, say, the Food Network, for posterity, to be played and replayed as your showpiece happens to collapse, as a year of your practice time, perfecting your bench skills and mechanics, has just collapsed right in front of you--and your peers and your family. I know, I've been there, captured for posterity, and seen friends pieces collapse alongside me, seen the ingenuity of some trying to save their beautifully artistically carved and sculpted chocolate pieces from melting by blowing dry ice over them with little fans. But then I recognize that there is an artistic side to food and cooking that is valuable in and of itself. I've also seen a rapt public, the gleam in little kid's eyes as they're exposed to such fine work--the scope of which was previously unseen in whichever community or province they're from.

It's called raising awareness, and it's all good. That little kid might one day grow up to become a creative chef, with eyes open, the next Ferran Adria possibly, all because he didn't have blinders on, and he saw something he marvelled at.

I'm glad you backtracked a bit Coop, when it turned out you had heard of a decent Canadian chef who competed. The minute any chef starts defining what all real chefs do or opining about what all real chefs want is, well, the minute said chef loses a little more of his credibility.

Oh, and by the way, in the elite competitions like the three I mentioned above, all of your work is tasted and brutally compared by the judges. Your every action is scrutinized by "work" judges grading your cleanliness, logic, organization and speed. You do it all in front of them. How'd you like to have Alberto Adria--the person unequivocably recognized as the best restaurant plated dessert chef in the world--taste a plated dessert of yours? Scary thought, I know, from first hand experience. Phony? Hardly.

Competitions are like anything else in food and cooking--you aren't a good chef because you went to school, you won a medal, get mentioned in magazines, get on FoodTV, have written a book, have supposedly "paid your dues," have worked at X and Y famous restaurant, etc. None of that means you can cook or create. You either can or you can't. End of story.

[chefette]

Quote Coop: "Chefs that run real restaurants have no time for these phony ego building competitions. The chefs involved are usually union workers, government employees or both. The only reward a real chef wants is happy customers and some money in the bank at the end of the month. "

Hmmm, you sound biiiitttter! What is the impetus behind your statement Coop? Are you a "Real" chef? Have you competed before? Have you lost? Have you wanted to compete but been prevented from doing so by management? Are you opposed to all types of competition? or just culinary competitions? Are athletes who compete in the Olympics not "Real" athletes? You really seem to have put yourself out on the fragile limb of blatant generalities and uninformed opinion here.

Since this is a Canadian thread I am a bit suprised because I thought the general ignorance and double standards about food, cooking, and chefs was mostly contained here in the US, where people believe food should be joyless, completely sanitary, come in sealed plastic packages, be microwaved and untouched by human hands, consumed dutifully for the sole purpose of sustaining life functions.

We were in France a couple of years ago right after the French Team won the Coupe du Monde--the Pastry World Cup (a very highly respected competition by elite pastry chefs and the world in general). The French Team was at this Food Show and at all times they were surrounded by young boys (and their parents) clamouring to get their autographs, to ask them pressing questions about technique and style. It was a real eye opener and fascinating for an American to behold. They were heros. Subsequently a team from the US (Ewald Notter, En Ming Hsu, and Michel Willaume--all elite pros, not sous chefs or chefs with initials after their name) won this French competition for the first time in history and there was a confused little paragraph in the Washington Post food section a month later. I think this speaks volumes about the US and its appreciation of the entire culinary career track. You might also look up stories about Tracy O'Grady from a Washington, DC restaurant (Kinkeads - where she is a sous chef). She went out for the Bocuse d'Or competition (also very highly regarded worldwide for young chef/sous chef types). She went through alot to prepare and raise money to compete and was pretty much crushed. As are most people who compete in most competitions - which I think pretty much nixes your 'ego' statement. Most people compete for the same reason people swim the English Channel or climb Mt. Everest - because it's there. Most people who compete also do not win (except for the personal victory from merely being in the competition) and so get no real ego stroking out of it. Its not a walk in the park, it is a hard process of pushing one's self in concepts, artistic presentation, technical skills, and taste.

[Jinmyo]

Food Network Canada had a special on the Bocuse d'Or.

Egad. Soul crushing competition.

[Steve Klc]

Yes Jin, and Food Network Canada also produced a special on the US and Canadian teams at the most recent World Cup in Lyon--when the US won. I've seen that on the schedule several times a year.

Here's another article to further complicate the Canadian scene:

http://www.cfcc.ca/news/viewnews.asp

[Kerouac1964]

Chefs that run real restaurants have no time for these phony ego building competitions. The chefs involved are usually union workers, government employees or both. The only reward a real chef wants is happy customers and some money in the bank at the end of the month.

Last I heard Army base pay per month was around $1700 USD. I think they are concerned about their bank accounts at the end of the month too.

These type of contests do seem to feed the snobbish aspect of the Culinary world.

I also get a sense of soullessness in their dishes. They are practiced to engineering standards, and the assembling chefs essentially become autobots using mechanical wonders and tricks to make what is or should be much more than just a pretty picture or shell.

The last factor would be my inability to ever taste such dishes do to either their price, or the rarity of their ingredients for the home cooking attempt.

[Steve Klc]

Now we're getting somewhere when Mike says:

"I also get a sense of soullessness in their dishes."

Very true, there is a tendency in some competitions to define a look--a look which the judges seem to reward with higher scores. As to "soullessness" I think depends on your personal frame of reference. Do you get that same sense of "soullessness" when looking at pictures of dishes by Adria or Gagnaire? Is a plate of barbecue and corn on the cob dripping with butter inherently more "soulful" to you?

"They are practiced to engineering standards, and the assembling chefs essentially become autobots using mechanical wonders and tricks to make what is or should be much more than just a pretty picture or shell."

That's another way of saying physical skill. It helps define the difference between cooking and professional cooking--and the physicality and stamina required in the latter. Failure to appreciate this distinction is but one way the media who celebrate cookery book writers diminish what professionals do--as if it were so easy to achieve such physical speed and agility if one but tried. It's one way the dining public continues not to appreciate why they're asked to pay so much when they dine out if the ingredients are so inexpensive and cooking were so simple. If you think the best pastry chefs or chocolatiers working in their shops or the best sous chefs on the line of the best restaurants are any less mechanically efficient, graceful, practiced and clean, you're mistaken.

And I have no idea what you mean by the last part --the mechanical wonders and tricks and the what is or should be more than a pretty picture or shell comment. You're not trying to imply that anything which looks rustic/Slow Food/Alice Waters-like must inherently taste better and more pure than anything prepared with obvious technical skills applied--the handwork and refinement involved in more sophisticated presentations--again readily apparent at the elite restaurant level? This is a running theme on eGullet--that of "applying technique"--but what it has to do here with your comment, I'm unsure.

You're of course right that the end result should be more than a pretty shell--but then that's why all the stuff is tasted, at least in the French competitions, as opposed to the ACF events--and taste actually counts more--upwards of 60% in some of these French-based events. So no matter how clean, how mechanical, how efficient, how artistic, how innovative, how soulful-seeming--taste is still the determinant.

Then you conclude with:

"The last factor would be my inability to ever taste such dishes due to either their price, or the rarity of their ingredients for the home cooking attempt."

Again, I see that as an errant presumption, Mike. This isn't Iron Chef where the challengers open tins of caviar as often as you or I open cans of tuna. Most competitors earn less and are as financially encumbered as any typical home cook. For one competition we built a cake around caramel--mousse, cream, gelee, caramelized nuts--can't get cheaper or more accessible than burnt sugar, can you? Cheap plain ingredients abound. To bring this briefly back to the Canadian angle, the pastry chefs who competed for Canada used Inniskillin icewine in one of their desserts--Inniskillin was a team sponsor--and granted the wine isn't cheap--but it certainly is readily accessible, even here in the US. And given the price of Austrian and German icewines Inniskillin actually represents a culinary value--a bargain--given its quality. The most expensive ingredients--say fine chocolates--are also readily accessible to home cooks and often less than you'd pay for steak down at the mini-Mart and certainly less expensive than an organic free range farmer's market artisanal humane steak.

None of this seems valid to me when used to diminsh one's sense of appreciation of the competitive attempt.

[Bux]

ACF competitions usually involve the kind of chefs who list initials after their names, like CMC, CEC, etc. The French--and those French-leaning anti-ACF artistic American chefs like me--don't do the "ACF" thing--and the only initials that count for the French are MOF.

Oh, I don't know. CEO seems to be looking good.

[Coop]

Although I have enjoyed reading your postings on this subject I find it hard to change my opinion. Yes I did work in the industry in Vancouver. I completed my apprenticeship but went no further finding other ways to make my living. I did own a restaurant and a catering business in the 90s. I however am not bitter. I just find that to me the real winners in the food business are the people who impress me with what is on the plate or in the glass (even less impressive to me medals won in wine competitions). I would make an exception for pastry chefs. Thier trade seems more visual and lends itself to competition.

Believe me the opinion of the people who judge these competitions whould in no way sway my judgment on a chef or the restaurant, hotel or nursing home he works in. This dosn't mean that a chef who wins one of these competitons is in some way inferior or for that matter superior to any other. What is on the plate, and in the room that sets a real chef apart.

I also believe that the chefs we all respect are too busy running thier shops to participate in this ego building exercise. I speak of Boloud, Ripert, Keller, Torres, Hawksworth, Del Grande, Fearing, Gail Grand, Payard and many other who are unmentioned.

Here in Vancouver the president of the chefs society works in the kitchen of a nursing home. He regularlly heads teams that participate in competitions. I am sure they are competent chefs but there are reasons some chef are serving pureed green beans while others are serving fois gras parfait. I prefer to support those chefs who run fine restaurants then those who participate in competitions. BTW my opinion seems to rub some people the wrong way on this subject and for that I am sorry.

[Steve Klc]

Coop--you've made your case for your opinion as best you can, initially I thought you were simply unaware, though now just that you are unappreciative.

When you say you "believe that the chefs we all respect are too busy running thier shops to participate in this ego building exercise. I speak of Boulud, Ripert, Keller, Torres, Hawksworth, Del Grande, Fearing, Gail Gand, Payard and many other who are unmentioned" well I'm sorry to tell you your list doesn't support your opinion: Jacques Torres and Payard both competed ALOT when they were climbing the ladder to fame and respect--Jacques to get the "MOF" and Payard in France and as recently as a few years ago during the Patisfrance US Pastry competition in NYC--where he did not win the Grand prize and walked off in a huff. But for both of them--competitions helped them get that "CEO" tag after their names. Though several you mentioned wouldn't have the skill to compete at that level, I don't hold that against them, nor should anyone, it does matter what's on the plate. Some people are just more well-rounded and skilled enough to compete--i.e. not only make killer desserts but also chocolate and sugar artistry and confectionery and petits fours--and some aren't. Most pros can admire the skills others possess. I guess it is good you're not still in the biz.

I'm sure I can speak for all those young chefs already working at elite properties and "fine restaurants" as you like to say--who also happen to compete--that they won't miss the support you're reserving for others.

Also, there seems little need to explore with you why you continue to dismiss competitions as "ego-building exercises" when there are so many other more worthy targets out there you could dismiss--like chefs appearing on some inane gameshow like "Ready, Set, Cook" with the pre-eminent food personality Sissy Biggers can be called anything but an ego-building exercise? We won't even get into chefs spending some quality time with Marc Summers and Gordon Elliott.

[Jinmyo]

Ooooh. Any time spent with Gordo E can only be quality time, innit? Especially if you've a knife in yer hand.

[Coop]

Well we agree to disagree. BTW I think both Torres and Payard as pastry chefs. On the subject of chefs whoring themselves on TV I am speechless. I think for the most part the ones who participate on those shows are "pub hounds" or has beens. Now don't come back and say that you had seen one of the chefs I respect smoozing Sissy Biggars. I don't really monitor who is on these lame Food Network shows. I also want to add to your list that talking haircut Tyler Florence. Believe me we get worse hosts on Food Network Canada. If you have never seen Michael Smith (Chef at Large and the Inn Chef) consider yourself lucky. Not to mention the three trolls on Canadian Living Cooks or Carlo Rota or Ken Kostick............. I used to find Gordon Elliott to be psuedo charming, kind of an Aussie Jerry Spiringer but now, Oh Dear.