Art well served!

Natalie McGregor, a Canadian student, with sugar butterfly and butter eagle which she and four other students carved.

Promising chef Stefon Barker with his chicken galantine display.

Barbadian culinary arts students Shanae Davis and Akylia Blackman with their unicorn and large Easter egg.

Young chefs Akylia Blackman, Marcel King, Dario Stuart and Kendra Branch in discussion at the food art display. (Pictures by Ricardo Leacock.)

A carved rabbit made of fruit was also on display.

Wed, April 25, 2012 - 12:05 AM

Talent galore. That’s perhaps the best way to describe some of the pieces put on show last Monday evening at the PomMarine Hotel, Hastings, Christ Church, by some of this island’s aspiring chefs who are students at the Barbados Community College’s Hospitality Institute.

The show, a food art display, was staged by the students to highlight some of the creative skills they have learnt in their programme, beyond merely preparing appetizing hot and cold dishes.

The moderate crowd, mainly relatives of the students invited to witness the display, were left in awe by what the students were able to achieve with items that are often just consumed or ignored.

There was a cantaloupe which one of the aspiring food artists carefully carved to make it look like a rabbit, the use of sugar to sculpt a dog and an impressive piece done by Natalie McGregor, a Canadian exchange student, who won the applause of many with her sculpture of a bird from fats.

Forty-four students participated in the display which was the culmination of all the practical courses the second year culinary arts students did during their Associate degree programme.

Other students from the Caribbean and Canada also displayed pieces in chocolate, fat and fruit, as well as vegetable carvings, all of which were eye-catching and mouth-watering.

According to director of the institute, Bernice Crichlow-Earle, “the course was food art presentation . . . . The students would have gone through the rudiments of cookery and international cookery and now they are looking at presentation of food and the artwork that goes into that presentation”.

Crichlow-Earle said that some of the students would also go on to prestigious universities, including the New England Culinary Institute, and also a number of culinary management programmes throughout the Caribbean.

“Many of them have applied already and some have been accepted,” she said.

Student Shanae Davis was very happy to be in the programme and hoped to work in the hotel industry in the not too distant future.

Also present were part-time chef instructors Ezra Beckles and Xiangguang Fan, who were impressed with their students’ work and hoped they would continue to do their best at all times. (RL)