I'm fascinated by cooking contests. Not only of the county fair variety, but also the Betty Crocker recipe contests, the church bake-offs, and the statewide BBQ championships. Cooking plus competition equals a good time in my book. Have you ever entered one of these kinds of cooking throw-downs?
The thing that impresses me the most is the amount of energy and passion that people bring to cooking contests. Cooking seems to bring up these emotions in most us already, and the added competition aspect makes everything that much more intense.
I love reading the profiles of the winners. These are people who worked on their secret barbecue sauce for years to get to this moment, who baked ten pies until finally satisfied with the result, and who stayed up whole nights before the contest making sure everything was perfect. That's the kind of dedication that I can admire!
What about you? Ever thought about entering your summer jam in a contest or submitting your favorite chicken recipe in cook-off?
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Comments (9)
Every year, the day after Thanksgiving, my friend Eric gathers all his friends and hosts an 'Annual Pie Off', the only rules are it has to be a pie, not a tart or cobbler (I fight for cobblers to be included every year!) and YOU MUST MAKE THE CRUST FROM STRATCH!!!! The non-bakers are the judges. It is always fun and a great tradition.
I was in this. In fact, you can see me in the linked clip -- when the host of the segment is excitedly brandishing a cookie and saying, "Caramel Apple Bacon Cookies!", I'm the woman standing to her left and nodding, 'cos those were indeed my cookies.
....I knew the second I showed up that i was going to lose, though -- the rules were to just involve bacon in some capacity, and my "replace-the-nuts-with-candied-bacon-bits" fell far short of the bacon tamales, bacon spring rolls, bacon turtle candies, and the guy who smoked his own bacon in his Brooklyn back yard for two straight days using a smoker he'd jerryrigged from a beer keg or something.
(The winner of the contest was the bacon-bourbon ice cream they eat in the segment, the one that Diane Sawyer describes as "sounding like Kentucky Porn". I later ran into the guy who made it and he said he considers it a personal triumph that he made Diane Sawyer say "porn" on national television.)
In conclusion: Matt Timm's takedown contests are incredibly awesome; watch for them in a city near you.
I won a church picnic baking contest with my brownies. I find chocolate will win most of the time :)
My local pub held a fundraising "stew-off", though the contest portion was rather secondary to making a wide variety of stews for those paying to taste and judge the entries. My Portuguese-Chinese take on coq au vin finished well behind the winning chili, but it was a blast.
Two contests, two wins. One here at the Kitchn, and one 20 yrs ago, Ladies Home Journal?? Both dumb luck - I happened to find the contest when I had recently developed something good.
Will I try again? Maybe. It really inspires my daughter.
Yes, actually. I've tried four or five times to compete in sffoodwars and was finally able to compete in their recent salsa competition. Did really well, actually. Totally fun and would do it again.
If you're interested:
http://sffoodwars.com/2011/08/in-review-the-great-salsa-championchip-2011/
I won the chili cook off at my husbands work. Steak beats out ground beef any day of the week.
I was 10 when I entered my first and only cooking contest at the local municipal fair. I won by proxy. I was the only 10-12 year old in my category. My coffee cake tasted AWESOME, but I had rested my hand on its warm goodness on the drive over. There was a huge canyon in the middle...
My mum told me that I shouldn't be disappointed if I didn't win, looking at the dent I'd made in my cake. I told her that she was silly because obviously I was going to win.
I very first entered sugar cookies in a 4H fair when I was a tiny, tiny child, and won a little ribbon.
In more recent years, I've won Best Looking Pie in the Mission Pie third annual Pie Contest, and Top Sweet at Bacon Camp SF 2010.
It's fun, but oh the anxiety. Not sure I could do it all the time.