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by Sherri Hogan

Culinary Youth Team Canada, consisting entirely of graduate students from Holland College's Culinary Institute of Canada, travelled to Dublin, Ireland last week to the Junior Culinary World Challenge and came home winners. Of the sixteen competing teams, Team Canada was one of six teams to achieve Gold and received a third place overall standing with only 1.5 points separating Gold from Bronze.

The Junior Culinary World Challenge, in connection with the 31st World Association of Cooks Societies (WACS) World Congress, was held from March 21st to 25th in Ireland's capital city. This was Youth Team Canada's first foray on the International scene and is a warm-up for the World Culinary Olympics being held in Erfurt, Germany in October.

"This is an exciting and gratifying success for the team but we are taking it in stride and as a team we understand that this is a prelude to the big event in the fall (Olympics) and all our focus now is on that event," said Chef Craig Youdale, manager of Culinary Youth Team Canada. "This event showed us that we are competitive with the worlds best and with more dedication and training we can come out on top at the Olympics."

Team members who participated in this international competition included Kreg Graham, Rebecca Hutchings, Mark Sheehy, Gerald Sharpe and Team Leader Chef Hans Anderegg. Team Manager Craig Youdale and Team Pastry Coach Richard Braunauer also accompanied the team.

This biennial WACS World Congress is an opportunity for the competitors to learn from each other's own experiences and cultures, creating a more diverse Culinary field.

Each day four teams from different countries, with each team consisting of three chefs and one coach, competed in the daily competitions, with the overall goal of becoming the overall winning country of the event. The teams had to create a menu consisting of a starter, main and dessert. Each team with their own unique menu cooked for a selected judging panel and for the other junior chefs that were not competing that day. Forty percent of the marks were allocated to the kitchen performance and practices, forty percent to the overall taste of the meal and twenty percent to presentation.

The sixteen competing countries in the Junior Culinary Challenge were Australia, China, Canada, United Arab Emirates, England, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Malta, Norway, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, USA and Wales.