Written by Camille White // Photo provided by Megan Jones
The Culinary Skills and Food Science class, FCS 1020, hosted a “Chopped” competition for their three-hour lab requirement Oct. 10. This is the second year this class has held the challenge.
The 18 students in the class were divided into 10 different teams. The students who won the competition last year competed again as a guest team.
“I assign them a fruit and vegetable, and they find a recipe — two different recipes — that feature that fruit and vegetable,” assistant professor of family and consumer sciences Megan Jones said. “The people they are competing against don’t know whatrecipes they are using, so it’s still a little bit of a mystery.”
Jones said that the class competition is different from the real competition, as the students are still developing their culinary skills.
“It’s just exciting to see the competitiveness come out, but just in a fun way where they get to show that fruits and vegetables — which are so full of nutrients — can taste good and be good,” Jones said.
Senior Kylie Hall and her partner freshman Rachel Moore were assigned pear and zucchini for their featured fruit and vegetable. They made zucchini pasta and a pear cobbler. Hall said they were notified of what fruit and vegetable they had to cook about two weeks before the competition, and they had to submit the recipes they planned to use a week before the competition.
“So we were trying to find something that looked good, and we really wanted to get the sweet and savory,” Hall said. “So, we were really trying to hit sweet with our pears and savory with zucchini.”
Hall said they wanted to do something different with zucchini, rather than just grill it. She did some research, and they settled on a zucchini pasta. Hall said she has always seen “Chopped” on TV, so it was fun to be a part of their class’s version of the competition.
Hall said she was happy with how their meal turned out, but it was stressful having the time limit.
“People that do this like every day, for a living, kudos to them, because it was stressful,” Hall said.
Assistant dean of student development Marcus Thomas was one of the 14 judges present in the competition. Family and Consumer science professors, additional faculty and staff and former students were also invited to be judges.
“I think it’s really neat they get to do this kind of thing, and it’s really hard to have people right in front of you judging your food,” Thomas said. “I kind of get stuck between how harsh do I want to be versus how encouraging?”
Junior Laura Campbell, family and consumer sciences administrative assistant, and senior Macian Schmitz won the second “Chopped” competition of FCS class 1020 with their blueberry jam bars.
