The 2014 Embassy Chef Challenge
By Johanna Mendelson Forman and Sam Chapple Sokol Washingtons culinary melting pot heated up last Thursday night as the 2014 Embassy Chef Challenge brought fifteen…
The Embassy Chef Challenge Thursday night at the the Reagan International Trade Center.(Facebook)
By Johanna Mendelson Forman and Sam Chapple Sokol
Washingtons culinary melting pot heated up last Thursday night as the 2014 Embassy Chef Challenge brought fifteen embassy chefs from around the globe to this annual foodie show down.
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In a city that is more accustomed to being home to the rubber chicken circuit, this Challenge is unique. Each of the embassy entrants were asked to prepare a dish that captures the best of each nations cuisine.
A tall order even for those chefs who by day serve the formal dining needs of their respective ambassadors.
The pressure is always on when an ambassador wants his or her chef to make best-in- show of his national cuisine.
This annual event, hosted by Cultural Tourism DC at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center, was a festive occasion for members of the diplomatic corps, the business community and Washington foodies. Former Chief of Protocol, Capricia Marshall, kicked off the competition.
Her presence was especially timely since it was through her office, and with the support of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that the U.S. government launched its well-regarded Chefs Corps to promote U.S. cooking around the world. Now culinary diplomacy has become yet another way for our government to promote the diversity of cuisines and cultures that have become part of the American kitchen.
Over sixty U.S. chefs are members of a distinguished group of culinary diplomats who wear the navy blue cooking jacket emblazoned with an American flag, when they tour the world on behalf of the United States.
The Embassy Chef Challenge: Meet Chef Edgar Melendez.(Facebook)
Four chefs from the Americas were featured in this kitchen battle: El Salvador, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. Each one prepared a sample of their countrys cuisine, in some cases adding fusion touches, or incorporating new ingredients to traditional plates.
Chef Edgar Melendez
For example, Chef Edgar Melendez, who cooks for Ambassador Ruben Zamora of El Salvador, prepared a delicious salpicon of beef, a well-loved dish of mincemeat.
Melendez noted that my passion for cooking started when I was 13 years old when my mom used to take me to her job a El Tamarindo restaurant, a well known Salvador eatery in Washington. He clearly picked up a taste for his native food early on.
Chef Sherene N. James
Jamaica was also well represented by Chef Sherene N. James, who in 2008 became her embassys chef from a career as a chef teacher in Runaway Bay at the HEART Hotel and Training Institute.
Chef Sherene N. James
While her day job consists of planning and executing menus for Embassy events for dignitaries visiting the United States from Jamaica, the night of the event she was at her creative best with a twist on the traditional Jerk chicken.
She substituted tilapia, added a mango salsa and really turned up the heat for an eye-watering dish.
Chef Mukesh Ramnarine
Trinidad and Tobagos Chef Tiger, Mukesh Ramnarine, would not be outdone by a Caribbean neighbor. A 20 year veteran of different hotel kitchens, Chef Tiger prepared a unique Atlantic Red Crab Meat Callaloo with Passion Fruit and Plantain Chips.
The chef explained that callaloo is a vegetable that is typical throughout the Caribbean, used to prepare soups and dishes of Afro-Caribbean origin.
This seafood cocktail was both beautiful to look at with its pink and green base. It tasted fresh from the turquoise blue waters of his native Caribbean island nation.
Chef Angel Lopez
Chef Angel Lopez, who served as Venezuelas embassy chef, prepared a very nice variation on a traditional arepa that was place atop a piece of blackened roast beef.
The combination of flavors beef gravy, cheese filled cassava balls (Arepas can be made with cassava or corn flour) was not only delicious, but beautiful to look at on the small plate he served up with freshly steamed asparagus. Lopez trained in Peru, but had long experience in cooking fusion cuisines having lived in Spain, Italy and France. What was especially interesting is that Venezuela, which often does not appear with other Latin American countries these days in Washington, was out in full force to show off the skills of its Embassy kitchen.
But like any competition, there can only be one winner. With all the talent at the Chefs Challenge, I am sure the judges were faced with a tough decision, but in the end, the Americas lost to the Embassy of Thailand, where Chef Jiraporn Bunlert wowed them with her Spiced Salmon Salad, or Phla Salmon.
For those of us ordinary mortals who were also allowed to make a peoples choice in the competition, the crowd went with Russian Chef Roman Shchadrins Salmon ice-cream, a frozen salmon mousse, topped with a black caviar cream sauce, poured over a warm potato pancake, a real show-stopper. The Chef said the recipe was inspired from the kitchen of the great empress Catherine the Great.
What is clear from the festivities of the Embassy Chef Challenge is that the kitchen has become a venue of foreign policy. And cooking has become a form of communication that reflects how people relate to one another. With evenings like these we also see how food has become a staple of global diplomacy, something that could help build and sustain better relations with those nations who are our friends, but also with those who might be foes. It was clear: eating knows no borders in this competition.
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Johanna Mendelson Forman is a Scholar-in-Residence at American University, School of International Service. Sam Chapple-Sokol is a food researcher and blogger.
