Matt Moore
It’s the gleam of a knife, the array of raw ingredients, the hushed silence imbued with swift movements.
It’s the Chef’s Challenge.
This year, University Dining’s head chefs and catering team will face off in the fourth battle of its kind, according to Chuck Norman, the vice president of Smith & Associates Inc.
The chefs will compete in Fountain Dining Hall — a move from previous years’ challenges, which took place in the Wolves’ Den — where they will have an hour and a half to create a vegetarian dish from the ingredients they are given.
“[W]e really wanted to highlight healthy eating and inform students on our efforts at University Dining to promote that kind of lifestyle,” Bill Brizzolara, executive chef at N.C. State, said in a press release.
Celebrity and culinary judges choose the winning dish using a point system, Norman said. It will be formulated for mass-production, he said, and added to the dining halls’ menus.
“The Challenge demonstrates the skill of the chefs,” Norman said. “They have to make sure the dish is easy to adapt so it can be made into a meal for the dining hall.”
Students are invited to watch the Challenge, he said, to see the first step chefs go through to transform a meal that feeds four people to one that feeds thousands.
“It’s mainly about inviting students in to show that professionally-trained chefs are on staff at each of the three dining halls,” Norman said. “Those chefs are the ones who prepare the menus and the different items that are fed to students. It’s really hard to cook for thousands of people.”