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By Coast Guard Chef, Chief Petty officer James Swenson
Teams from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard, and some mixed service teams, competed in the 6th Annual Military Culinary Competition, hosted by the Military Hospitality Alliance Branch of the International Food Service Executives Association, Sept. 26.
There were a ton of military chefs participating in this event held in one of Washington D.C.’s historic neighborhoods called Barracks Row, which is named after the Marine Barracks home of the U.S. Marine Corps ceremonial unit.
The personnel comprising the U.S. Coast Guard Team were Senior Chief Justin Reed; Chief Petty Officer James Swenson, Petty Officers 2nd Class Edward Fuchs and Ben Murray.
Scoping out the talent competing this year, I spotted one of the “best of the best” chefs,
U.S. Army Chef Staff Sgt. Josh Spiess. Another man to beat was U.S. Navy Culinary Specialist 1st Class Michael Edwards, 2009 Armed Forces Chef of the Year. Other competitors looking for the win were U.S. Marine Chef Gunnery Sgt. Jesse Rogers U.S. Army Chef, Sgt. 1st Class Brad Davis; one of the Army’s hidden talents was leading up the Joint Chief of Staff’s team.
I had to give credit to the MHA they had really gotten together some of the best.
Prior to the start of the competition, our team got together and looked over the common pantry. On our way over we saw some other great chefs getting ready to compete. The amount of talent that was present was impressive.
The common pantry looked good! During the competition the teams were allowed to grab whatever they needed out of the common pantry. They had a great selection of dry goods produce and dairy products. We had fresh herbs, a nice selection of cheese, a variety of well selected produce and all the necessary dairy products to produce some fine cuisine.
However, the equipment was a bit lacking. They put us under a 10 foot tent with two 6 foot tables.
We had two butane burners and a rational oven. We had an acceptable amount of kitchen wares minus the sauté pans.
Each team received a mystery basket 30 minutes before the competition began. Our basket contained whole grain pasta, prawns, beef steak tomatoes and baby zucchini. Two members of my team, Ed and Justin, started working their culinary menu creating skills. They came up with a tuscan soup for the first course; stuffed prawns with a spicy shrimp sauce over a root vegetable disc with sautéed rainbow Swiss chard for the main. We were off!
They gave us two and a half hours. We had four chefs and plenty of time to accomplish our mission. And, everything came together great. Ben and I prepped everything out, Justin and Ed put it all together. The dishes were beautiful. We were ready for our critique. The chef who judged our first course and main dish didn’t have too much criticism to hand out. While our soup needed a tad more protein; he liked our main dish, but offered that it needed a crunch. His final critique advised the group that the Swiss chard was cooked for too long. What were our chances of winning this year?
We wouldn’t know the results for another five hours to wait for the official results. During our downtime, I had an opportunity to talk with the other military chefs, Tama Murphy from the Culinary Institute of America, the MHA staff and my favorite celebrity chef, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Brad Turner from the Pentagon Channel.
I have so much respect for Turner. He’s a great chef. He always keeps it positive and he inspires others to keep on cooking.
And for the results! We lost. Probably because my soup was murky and I overcooked the Swiss chard. The actual winners of 6th Annual Military Culinary Competition were the White House Culinary Team, consisting of three Navy chefs and one Coast Guard chef.
