“Our hard work and strength of mind made this team successful,” says Serrato. “We portrayed determination by the way we efficiently executed our gold standard. In the end, we knew we had applied the best of ourselves from the beginning to the end.”
University of Cincinnati’s winning entry was a gourmet meal dubbed Texas Prairie Duo consisting of braised chuck flat beef strips smothered in a sweet and tangy sauce, accompanied by a medley of fire-roasted vegetables. “Culinology is a hot topic, but it all starts with culinary,” one of the judges remarked during critique, when the UC team was told that braising 10 to 15 minutes longer would have yielded an even more-tender product.
A student team from Johnson & Wales University, Providence, placed second and Louisiana State University placed third. Eight student teams from across the country responded to RCA’s initial request for proposal, from which three, deemed finalist-worthy, were chosen to compete in Dallas.
The competing teams each developed a frozen, restaurant-quality gourmet meal for two for a fictional retail-grocery channel, which included both the gold-standard recipes and the corresponding product formulations. The meal had to be inspired by Texan cuisine and include beef plus one technical ingredient to aid freeze-thaw. One week prior to the competition, each team shipped its pre-portioned, frozen meal items to the event location. Teams prepared their fresh, gold-standard menu items on-site in Dallas.
In a Culinology Match Test, competition judges compared each team’s reheated and plated frozen item against its corresponding freshly prepared item; 25% of the score derived from how closely the gold standard and rethermalized entrées matched. Judging also focused on various other Culinology elements such as flavor, aroma, texture, ingredient composition, presentation and authenticity.
The 2009 competition was supported by competition star sponsor National Starch Food Innovation and competition ingredient sponsors ButterBuds Food Ingredients, David Michael & Co., SupHerb Farms and The Beef Checkoff.
Next year’s Student Culinology Competition will be held May/June 17-20 at the RCA Annual Conference & Culinology Expo at the Hyatt Regency in Phoenix. For more information, visit www.culinology.org.