German Youth Cooking Competition finals: Motivation for young talent
Last month I had the honor of being part of the jury judging the performance of young chefs taking part in the German Youth Cooking Competition finals (Bundesjugend-wettbewerb des Verbandes der Köche Deutschlands e.V.). It was a real pleasure to experience the attention to detail and the aim for perfection these young ladies and gentlemen gave to provide the best menu.
Contestants were given a food basket and a guideline on what was mandatory to use – the rest was up to their creativity.
When the first dishes of the three course menu came out of the kitchen, all of us in the jury were astounded by the quality and imagination that went into each dish. It was hard to judge at first, as for such young chefs it was a great result all round. Of course as the lunch went on we all found our favorites.
Why am I writing about this today?
It is a great example on how to motivate and to foster the young talent that our industry so desperately needs. People who devote their professional life to food need a very good basic culinary education to build upon. But it doesn’t stop there; working with food is about learning every day and mastering your skills.
Everybody working with young chefs should invest time to foster and develop them. They are our future!
At LSG Sky Chefs we will start a new initiative with a professional job rotation program to exchange and foster knowledge and ethnic culinary skills for the benefit of our chefs and our clients’ passengers.
Culinary Regards,
Jörg Tüttelmann