Unusual Maldives culinary competition: Soups and cakes brought in boats
View(s):MALE – Imagine delicately balancing a bowl of soup or steadying a cake perched on a stand on a rocking boat in the high seas? That’s how Gissur Gudmundson, President of the World Association of Chefs Societies (WORLDCHEFS) jokingly described the landmark Culinary Challenge held in the Maldives earlier this week coinciding with the 3-day Food and Hospitality Asia 2014 exhibition.
Chefs competition in progress
Jokes apart … while over 300 chefs from resorts in the Maldives and hotels in Male, the capital, took part in the country’s first chefs competition, most of the participants travelled from far-away resorts by speedboat or seaplane, an unusual way for competitions of this nature held in other parts of the world where competitors travel inland – not across rough seas or long stretches of water.
“We have 10 million chefs all over the world and this is the first culinary challenge in the Maldives, a country that would be admitted as our 101st member shortly. Imagine creating a soup or a culinary masterpiece and transporting it to the mainland by boat? These are the challenges that normal culinary competitions don’t have,” Iceland-based Mr. Gudmundsson said at the inauguration of the exhibition.
It was organized by Male-based Dhivehi Expo Services with their Sri Lankan partner CDC Events and Travels in association with the Maldives Ministry of Economic Development; Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Maldives Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies and the Chefs Guild of Sri Lanka.
There were over 120 stalls showcasing global brands in the hospitality industry – furniture, food and beverages, IT solutions, greenhouse solutions, medical services, swimming pools, events management, tea, fisheries, sporting equipment, etc.
The Chefs Guild of the Maldives was also formed at the event. The main attraction was the live cooking – all kinds of meats -, and the deserts’ competitions that saw mostly mid-level chefs and apprentices pitching their skills aiming to be rewarded with medals. Chefs Guild of Sri Lanka Chairman Gerald Mendis, a veteran Sri Lankan chef, said accolades and medals secured at competitions of this nature help to improve the CVs of competing chefs and boosts their skills.
According to a hotelier who attended the event, “it also gives us an opportunity to see the skills of various young chefs and (maybe) offer a new job to anyone who interests us”.
With a large component of Sri Lankans working in upscale Maldivian resorts, most of the competing chefs came from Sri Lanka. There were nearly 40 different categories of competitions with some interesting ones being the creative bread display (‘whoever though chefs could create masterpieces from bread that dazzled visitors?’), cakes, stunning chocolate showpieces, creative coffee using Nescafe and deserts.
The Dharubaaruge Exhibition Centre – where the event was held – is the only centre that can accommodate exhibitions of this magnitude; large in terms of Maldivian standards (population 300,000 +) but small in international terms. With the hospitality industry vibrant and active (the Maldives, though small, attracts the same number of tourists – over one million – like Sri Lanka), the centre has an exhibition almost every week mostly on hospitality and leisure, and education.
While Economic Development Minister Mohamed Saeed, speaking at the opening ceremony, said exhibitions like this would help in improving the standards of hotels and the service industry, Ms. Maryam Noordeen, Founder of the Chefs Guild of the Maldives noted that the formation of the new body would go a long way towards training and fostering Maldivians in the hospitality sector, the country’s main foreign exchange earner. – Feizal