Bon Appétit Holds Sustainable Iron Chef Competition at Carleton College

Written by Vera Chang on November 21, 2011in Chefs, Community, Education, Events, Farm to Fork, Featured, Local food, Sustainable Food Challenge - 0 Comments

Sous Chef Vale Rigg (right) and his Top Chef team

As a Carleton College alumna (’09), I know that the student body is filled with revolutionary and creative spirits who really care about their food and where it comes from. With such student organizations as Farm Club, a brand-new cooking student organization headed by young Swedish chef Vayu Maini Rekdal, and Food Truth, considered the most active group on campus, it’s no wonder students flocked to compete in the campus’s first annual Sustainable Iron Chef Competition, hosted by Bon Appétit Management Company in honor of the first national annual Food Day.

Cooked up by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day is a movement for “real food” across the country. Its a campaign includes such nationwide initiatives as reforming factory farming and promoting health foods to kids, sustainable agriculture practices, and fair conditions for food and farm workers.

For the competition, Executive Sous Chef Dan Watrin and Sous Chefs Vale Riggs and Gibson Price each led a team of students. They first shared with the audience one of the ways Bon Appétit helps contribute to the creation of a more sustainable agricultural system: using our purchasing dollars to support small-scale, sustainable agricultural practices. The would-be Sustainable Iron Chefs had to source at least of 75% of each menu locally (which Bon Appétit defines as within 150 miles) and 100% of their ingredients had to follow Bon Appétit’s sustainability commitments, as is the practice in all of our cafés. (This, for example, means that milk is always rGBH-free, hamburger beef raised without hormones and routine antibiotic use, seafood sustainable, and so on.)

Finally, the secret ingredient, Farm to Fork partner Ferndale Farm’s pasture-raised, antibiotic-free turkey, had be featured in at least the main entrée. And with Thanksgiving right around the corner, if you’re local to Southeast Minnesota, check out Ferndale Market for your Thanksgiving needs. Otherwise, consider EcoCentric’s guide to finding a sustainably raised turkey. Continue…

More in Chefs