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Unlike before, the fight takes place in front of the crowded stands in the Estonian capital this year. Avoid the blowers of the English Drukkers, the organized applause of the Japanese, the roar of a large number of Scandinavian fan camps, the waving of the flag or the applause of the Hungarian fans (led by Balázs Csapody, owner of the Kistücsök restaurant in Balatonszemes).
- The competitors this time have to make catfish for the fish.
- Seven quail with full use (offal is also a mandatory element) of the presentation of the meat bowl.
- They must serve each finished plate in fourteen plates.
While competing chefs try to rule out any distracting circumstances in order to create a perfect meal in the 335 minutes at their disposal, encouragement matters a lot in this “sport” too. At the European final in Budapest in May 2016, the Hungarian public did not accidentally take Tamás Széll to first place.
From my is az to Bocuse d’Or?
The idea for the Bocuse d’Or was born during a 1983 exhibition in Lyon (Salon des Métiers de Bouche). There were already many international chef competitions back then, but there are places where, in front of the public, raw food is prepared to taste tasty and hot food, not yet. Paul Bocuset (1926-2018) was elected sponsor, president and later namesake of the contest, a pioneer of nouvelle cuisine, with three Michelin stars, a MOF title (Best of France) and the Chef of the Century (Gault Millau, 1989). as its owner, as a knight of the Order of Honor of the French Republic, he became perhaps the greatest figure in the world’s gastronomy. The first official competition was held in Lyon in 1987, where the chefs of the chefs and the leaders of the country were still invited. Twenty years later, the organizers were attacked several times (the Spanish accused the jury of bias and old-fashioned attitude, and the Germans shouted fraud upon discovering the hidden and pre-made ingredients of the French competitor), so they changed the organization: from In Asia and Latin America, and since 2018 also in America and Africa. The world leading Bocuse gold statuette can be obtained at the final of the SIRHA exhibition in Lyon at the beginning of every odd-numbered year.
Although large audiences can only follow the competition online this year, the basic rule now is that all catches must be freshly prepared before them.
You can’t even cut ingredients in advance.
The only concession is that the base juices, which are made for hours anyway, could have been made ahead of time, but the kitchen jury is tightly monitoring it too, peering out from behind their mask with vulgar eyes.
Competitors got to know the mandatory raw material of meat six months earlier, while fish met fish three months earlier, so the final months for the Hungarian team were spent cooking, cooking and refining flavors all day six days at a time. week. for preparation, and then for cooking and serving that mimics the competitive situation.
As a common practice in recent contests, more emphasis will now be placed on vegetables, which competitors had to select from the “market” built in the exhibition in the thirty minutes of the day before the contest, so improvisation skill will also play a role. big role.
Like every year since 2013, the creations must now, in some way, reflect the national cuisine of the entrees.
Let’s celebrate Hungarians!
The fight for the first place in Europe is already taking place today, but we can only push the Hungarians tomorrow morning, that is, one of the official presenters, András Jókuti, even today.
Hungary will be represented this year by:
- István Veres, former chef of the Babel restaurant, awarded with a Michelin star.
- Bence commis Molnár, the assistant.
- Coach Coach of István, the “coach”.
- Tamás Széll, the team leader, was previously the world’s first European runner-up, fourth place in the world championship and two more special award winners.
Fortunately, even after their smooth journey with the Warsaw relocation, after their national Covid test, Tallinn also turned negative, so they can prepare their kitchen utensils for the competition, arriving accurately and without damage by truck.
Hungarian team chef
István Veres left Kézdivásárhely from a host family. As a child, he was the main taster of the family restaurant, turning a lot in the kitchen. He also spent his first years of practice here at Wild Rose, followed by one of the most prestigious culinary schools in Paris after his university years in Bucharest. From here, his trip to the kitchen of the three L’Arpège, awarded with three Michelin stars, led him to Alain Passard, where he cooked and studied for a year and a half, far exceeding the average practice of two months, going from 16 to 18 hours a day in the kitchen. According to him, all this could be due to the precision he had learned from his grandfather, his perseverance inherited from his parents and his stubbornness and Szekler maximalism. After Dublin, Reading, and Gordon Ramsay’s London restaurant, after a two-month detour home, Budapest was his next destination, where he soon found himself at the head of Babel’s kitchen. Built on ingredients from the Carpathian basin, its modern kitchen and equipped with classic technologies, which boldly represented the roots of Transylvania, achieved the highest recognition in 2019, enriched the Hungarian gastronomic palette with a Michelin star. By winning the Bocuse d’Or in Hungary last year, he won the right to represent Hungary in Tallinn.
Since the Hungarian team also participated in the Bocuse d’Or competitions, it has become common to predict and express expectations, which only puts unnecessary weight on the shoulders of already overloaded competitors. So while the omens are favorable according to the leaders of the Hungarian Academy Bocuse d’Or, let’s just stick with the goal that the team members formulated:
direction Lyon, transfer to Tallinn!
(Cover image: real image from this year’s Tallinn contest. Photo: Bocuse d’Or / Facebook)
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