Spc. Michelle Carville and Staff Sgt. Stephen Broome prepare deserts at Grafenwohr on Wednesday during training for the World Culinary Olympics. (Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes)
GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — Fifteen of the best U.S. military cooks will head to Erfurt this week to represent America in the World Culinary Olympics.
The U.S. Army Culinary Arts Team, which includes one member of the Coast Guard, will be pitted against other military chefs in a contest that tests their ability to cook a three-course meal in a German field kitchen.
Judges award points based on how the food tastes, how it looks and the nutritional makeup of the meal. Scores are also awarded for correctly storing food and using proper cooking techniques, according to Master Sgt. David Turcotte, the team’s noncommissioned officer in charge.
The U.S. has won the Olympic military title twice — in 1992 and 2000, he said.
Only six members of the team compete during the Olympic cook-off. The rest of the personnel are advisers or apprentices who can step in if a competitor falls out, Turcotte said.
The U.S. team is composed of soldiers from all over the Army, including personnel stationed in Germany and South Korea, chosen, after a tryout at Fort Lee, Va., that assesses chefs’ cooking knowledge, kitchen hygiene and military bearing, he said.
"We want soldiers first," he said.
On Wednesday, the team was at Grafenwöhr cooking a practice meal.
The field kitchen, parked at Camp Kasserine, was a hive of activity as the cooks worked feverishly to arrange slices of fish and tie vegetables in knots before arranging the appetizers on plates.
One of the apprentices, Army Ranger Sgt. Billy Daugette, 23, of Huntsville, Texas, helped prepare the kitchen and serve the food to a room full of hungry German soldiers.
Two years ago, Daugette accompanied the team as a support person, washing dishes and getting his first taste of the action. In the next Olympics he hopes he’ll be one of the chefs, he said.
"We apprentices help out the pastry guys and the guys doing turkey and fish. If you are in the competition, you are focused on just one thing," he said.
There’s a high energy level in the field kitchen during competitions, but scenes like those in the Hell’s Kitchen reality show are rare, Daugette said.
"(Hell’s Kitchen chef) Gordon Ramsay’s style is the style of the past. The cooking community is trying to change that, although sometimes that is the way you have got to be," he said.
Coast Guard senior chief petty officer Justin Reed, 35, of Washington, D.C., is one of the six U.S. competitors who will be in the kitchen in Erfurt.
On Wednesday, he worked on the main entrée of sweet potatoes, turkey, green beans and Johnnycakes.
Working in the German field kitchen is a challenge for Reed, who’s more likely to find himself in a ship’s galley than in a trailer.
"There is no controlled heat (in the German field kitchen). It is just hot or very hot. There is no way to gauge the temperature. People expect their food hot. So it is all about timing," he said.
The Grafenwöhr meal was the fifth cooked by the team in preparation for the Olympics, he said.
"On the first two days, the potatoes tasted like baby food and one of the steamers burned the green beans and we didn’t make time," he said.
Wednesday’s practice, capped off with chocolate mousse for desert, appeared to go off without a hitch.
What the Army will dish up
First courseSeared tuna, smoked stuffed trout, poached salmon, peppered greens, lemon asparagus, seaweed salad, apple horseradish relish, spiced glazed pecans
Second courseHerb-infused mushroom stuffed turkey breast, country sausage, jus lie, sweet potatoes with candied walnuts and pears, green beans, wrapped in ham, caramelized pearl onions, cranberry Johnnycakes
Third courseChocolate mousse crunch cake with a meringue cookie, apricot, macerated cherries, cherry and apricot sauce
Source: USACAT
