I judged a kids’ cooking competition. Here’s what these budding chefs created.
After a week of learning how to chop, slice, season and grow ingredients, 17 attendees of the Wylde Culinary Arts Camp at Wylde Center Oakhurst Garden were putting their skills to the test in a high-stakes competition.
The four groups, each made up of four to five kids, received baskets of ingredients they were required to incorporate into a complete and composed meal, along with whatever they could find in the pantry. The required ingredients included plums, farro, a can of chickpeas, summer squash and a baguette.
They had two hours in Wylde Center’s Decatur kitchen to create a set of dishes that would impress the eight judges who waited outside with empty plates and stomachs.
I had the great honor of being one of them.
I’m not a parent, so I haven’t spent much time with kids as an adult and really had no idea what to expect from this group of knife-wielding 10-year-olds. After reading so many doom-and-gloom articles with headlines predicting the collapse of learning, mass illiteracy and the death of critical thinking in young people at the hands of technology — in other words, the epidemic of “iPad kids” — I wasn’t too sure what I’d find.
I’m happy to say the success of this competition chipped away at those pessimistic predictions. All four groups of children delivered multiple dishes that were not only edible, but downright tasty.
In the end, team “Non-Chilantro” took home the overall prize, but the entire competition proved the upcoming generation knows a thing or two about throwing down in the kitchen.
Sizing up the competition
When I arrived for my judging duties, it was like stepping into a hurricane.
The bright kitchen at Wylde Center, a nonprofit that uses education, events and green space to connect the community with nature, was in a frenzy as children from third to eighth grade, dressed in paper chef toques and aprons, bustled between stations to put the final touches on their masterpieces.
One of the groups, dubbed the Chopped Chilis, had half the team working on a type of stew that involved tomatoes, carrots, chickpeas, farro, tomato sauce and summer squash. The other half was putting the final touches on a dessert course of tartlets, which featured slices of baguette sprinkled with sugar, topped with a mix of sliced plums and apricots and drizzled with honey.
The group of girls explained that over the past week, they had learned new cooking skills, like how to dice vegetables or make dumplings, and the rest of the day might be spent in the Wylde Center garden, learning about the herbs and veggies and sometimes catching salamanders, though they assured me there would be no salamander in our meal.
Sue Ellen Wortzel, the education director at Wylde Center, has decades of teaching experience. She has found that anytime there’s an opportunity for kids to practice independence, it can build confidence that spreads to all aspects of their lives, not just in the kitchen.
“Any time a child has success in one thing, it carries over into the next challenge,” she said. “If they’re really successful at things they do at home or in the kitchen, or if they’re really good at a sport at an early age, then it carries into that school challenge.”
A few tables over, the Non-Chilantro group was gathered around their plated meal. They had made a bowl of hummus studded with cherry tomatoes and served with toasted bread. The main course featured farro and cheese burritos, the only team to devise such a preparation. Finally, there was a blended dessert of plum and apricots ringed with Craisins and topped with a sprig of cilantro.
Even the smallest member of their team, the 7-year-old sister of one of the older boys, proved she could bring a helpful perspective to the project as she artfully decorated the platter with fresh flowers from the garden. At the end of the competition, when the children were asked what they learned from this experience, she confidently said, “Working together.”
For this group, the experimentation associated with cooking inspired them. One of the 10-year-old boys shared his philosophy: “You can create whole new things, like when you mix a color there’s not that much you can make, it usually just goes to brown, but with cooking you can make like a lot of new stuff.”
Such as their farro and cheese burrito, which was a massive hit among the judges.
Judging the creations
At the judging panel, I sat alongside a mix of Wylde Center volunteers, the nonprofit’s executive director, employees from Community Farmers Markets and David Smith, the owner of Pizza Verdura Sincera.
Smith would prove to be an exacting, but fair, critic. During the deliberation period, as we chose what to award each group, he held them to high standards so they might develop good habits early.
“This is a great time before they get locked into patterns of cooking,” he said.
During the Culinary Arts Camp, Wortzel said they try to introduce kids to new foods they may not have tasted before, as well as the history of the ingredients they’re using and some of the science behind cooking.
“Kids always surprise me when they do things that adults do,” she said. “But I’m not surprised anymore, so much, because I know people regardless of age, with the right scaffolding and supervision and support and enabling, they can do anything. They can learn anything, and they can be successful at something.”
As each team presented their dishes, they elicited sounds of surprise and pleasure from the judges. The “Mooshrooms” delivered a crunchy, texturally diverse salad that featured cucumber, squash, corn, farro and lime juice.
“I love the colors, textures and abundance of the salad, and found myself wishing for an acidic element and a drop of coarse finishing salt,” Smith noted.
A common piece of constructive criticism from the judges was that some extra salt and lemon would go a long way, though Stephanie Van Parys, Wylde Center’s executive director, acknowledged that the chefs’ young palates may be more sensitive to flavors than our grizzled adult taste buds.
Once all the dishes had been tasted, we gathered to write down our observations and select the awards. While the Non-Chilantros took the overall win, each group impressed with their ingenuity.
How can parents foster a love of cooking in their kids?
“Whenever you say no, it’s based in a fear,” Wortzel said after the competition had concluded.
There are a lot of frightening things in the kitchen — sharp objects and fire, to name a couple — but Wortzel always asks herself if it’s a legitimate fear. Some children thrive with freedom in the kitchen, but she knows that it can be a little too much for some people.
“So you work with them in different ways, but the opportunity is never taken away,” she said. Maybe they can’t use a real knife, but they could work with safer kitchen tools specially made for children.
Paul Zang, general manager at the Cook’s Warehouse, a cooking supplies store that also hosts cooking classes and camps for kids, suggested getting them their own tools, even if it’s just their own colorful vegetable peeler.
“When they feel like they have their own equipment in the kitchen, that’s a great way to get them engaged,” he said.
When Wortzel became a parent, she also had to learn to accept some chaos in the kitchen. If parents are comfortable sitting back and letting their kids make a mess, and likely some mistakes, then she encourages them to do it. Plus, at this age, it’s more about the process than the result, she added. If it’s edible, that’s good enough — it doesn’t have to be restaurant quality.
She also recommends stocking the kitchen with foods that require chopping or slicing so kids can participate in some part of the meal. Or, parents can involve their children in the meal planning process. At Wylde Culinary Arts Camp, the kids all bring home several recipes that Wortzel hopes they can suggest for a meal of their own.
“I know when they go home tonight, they’re going to be able to talk about things they’ve learned,” Wortzel said. “They’re going to have a lot of confidence, and I just think that just breeds into everything else.”