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Culinary Olympics

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Terry Cullen

Feb 17, 2023

Germany

Categories:

Food, Cooking, Competition, Olympics, Culinary

Next year, Paris, France will host the 2024 summer Olympic games. That same year, there will be a different type of Olympic competition, one that has been happening every four years since 1900, the IKA/Culinary Olympics. This mega event is almost as old as the Olympic games and is billed as the world’s largest international event of culinary arts.


Last held in 2020 in Stuttgart, Germany, the Culinary Olympics attracted 1,800 competitors from 67 countries and cooked 8,000 menus. 100,000 visitors attended the event. Teams (National Team, Junior National Teams and Community Catering Teams) register on-line and a drawing is made months in advance of the competition to determine which teams compete against each other. Teams win points through each competition and the teams with the most points at the end of the games are awarded medals. The top ten National Team winners in 2020 in descending order were: Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Singapore, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Italy and Denmark).


Next year’s event will be held February 2 to 7, 2024 and promises to be as exciting as the last. The games are highly competitive, diverse and fun with competitors sharing in each other’s successes. The food creations are stunningly beautiful reflecting the colorful and creative talents of their culinary teams.


Culinary competitions are global and local, grand and humble, from the Culinary Olympics to the local festival or featuring blue ribbons for best baked pie or barbecue. Food is a universal language of sorts and this is an opportunity for your hometown to get noticed and attract people (and money) to your locale. It is not difficult to start but it does require some planning. Choose a food theme. It could be based on something that’s known in your area, such as a dessert (e.g. pies), a fruit or vegetable (e.g. orange, apple, tomato), ethnic diversity featuring several cultures (e.g. Asian foods). Start small to test out the idea and pair it with another event in your community, such as a festival or fair. If you get a good turnout, make plans to grow it a little more next year and put out the call to volunteers. Or go even smaller and host something in your workplace (e.g. a mini-cheesecake competition to raise money for a charity), or a friendly competition between neighborhoods.


Culinary competitions can be fun, community-building events that bring people together, put aside differences and be amazed at something most of us enjoy, food.


Photo by Arminaus Raudys

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Catalog #:

0223.100.04.021723

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