First Battle of the Zones cooking competition
brings crowd eager for food

By Amanda Hickey and Colleen Griffiths
Staff Writer and News Editor

On Nov. 23 from 5-6 p.m., the UNCP Dining Services hosted the Battle of the Zones. This competition took place at the cafeteria, in the Chef’s Corner.

This competition, also known as the Copper Chef, is like “Iron Chef,” which is shown on the Food Network.

“It’s like a food competition where two chefs square off with a basket of ingredients and they have a certain amount of time to make an entrée,” said Dining Services Director Mike Nance.

This competition was proposed by SODEXHO, the corporation who provides the dining services, but the UNCP Dining Service was able to “tweak the idea in order to fit each college or university,” according to Nance. The Dining Services staff has been planning this event since the beginning of the school year.

“Two of our chefs are going to go head to head with two assistant chefs who are students. Each will have their own baskets with spices and ingredients. They’ll have three different meats; they’ll have a beef, a chicken, and a fish. (Using those ingredients) they’re going to prepare three different entrees, in an hour period,” explained Nance.

There were two teams consisting of two students and one chef. On Team One were students Brandon Blanks, Nolan Graves and chef Alice Brooks. On Team Two were students Micheal Lavender and Darrell Brown, and chef Dora Smith.

The teams cooked six different entrees each from a variety of ingredients, including chicken, beef, rice, vegetables, salmon and sauces.

A panel consisting of six students judged the entrees. That panel decided the winner based on presentation, taste and creativity.

The student cooks and judges were selected randomly from people entering the cafeteria early before the competition was to begin.

“I walked in and the cooks asked if I wanted to do it,” said Trey Binger, a judge for the competition.

Student Preston Siler was another judge for the competition.

“I have seen the show, ‘Iron Chef’ and I used to be in culinary arts, so I kind of know what I am doing,” said Siler.

Another student, Will Odom, came to help cook for one of the teams in the competition, but the teams were already set by the time he got to the cafeteria and he became a judge instead.

Food was passed out to people who were standing by, watching the performance as well.

The judges used a letter grading system for the entrees prepared by the cooks. The letter ‘A’ was the highest rating, and the letter ‘F’ was the lowest. The overall winner was decided by tallying the number of A’s received for each team. The team with the highest number of A’s won.

The overall score was 55 to 52, and Team Two won by three votes.

Smith, Lavender and Brown received $50 in munch money, and Blanks, Graves and Brooks received $25 for second place.

The winning team was presented with golden spatulas mounted on a wooden board, underneath the words “Battle of the Zone, Fall 2004.”

According to Nance, the competition was an incentive to improve the dining experience and “to give the students an opportunity to cash in on some munch money which I know, at this point, everyone is a little low on.”