Miles Collins

Good Times, Bad Times in Competetive Cookery Competitions

We are back in the Pope mobile heading off to compete in yet another salon culinaire The Renault is packed with knives, chopping boards, display mirrors, decorating equipment (we used to moonlight as painter and decorators) and table cloths.

We went all over on these jaunts; London, Manchester, Birmingham, Huddersfield, all in the name of inedible food presented in a way never to be seen in a restaurant.

Some venues were better than others, by that I mean basic facilities. You can’t beat arriving at a venue after a three and a half hour drive to find all the doors locked and nobody to let you in because they told you the wrong start time.

Most salon’s aren’t particularly well funded, they certainly weren’t when I was competing….

We arrive at a Polytechnic somewhere in Yorkshire, tired and mentally broken from a four month long season of competing, failing, winning and getting cheated in no particular order. We park illegally, the Jesus stickers will save us, if not, well it’s not our car so we don’t care either way.

“Alright mate? We’re here for the salon, Where do we set up?” we always said that and then we would be shown to a large hall. Not this time. “Down the corridor, first left, follow signs for swimming pool” said the security guard earning some spare cash before competing in the 1993 Mr.Puniverse. His glasses were thicker than his neck, his cap wider than his shoulders.

“Very funny, Arnie” said I, switching to angry young chef mood in an instant. “Honest lads, that’s where it is” he said, looking like the Kray brothers had just asked him where the safe was.

He was right. We followed the signs all the way to the swimming pool changing rooms. “In here chefs” said an Oliver Hardy lookalike in chef’s whites. We walked in with all of our food. It was like a Turkish bath, chefs were stripping off and preparing their garnishes in their underpants, it wasn’t pretty. “You are joking” said I. “No” said he.

Our ‘tables’ were the slated wooden seats, we were sweating buckets and we still had our trousers on. Four weeks earlier we had seen the Head Chef’s terrine entry find its resting place across the back windscreen of the Renault, we were determined not to make the same mistake, he was sure we wouldn’t.

So who do you think was chosen to present his entry? You’ve guessed it, Moi. It’s thirty two degrees centigrade in a swimming pool changing room and I’ve got to display my Head Chef’s entry to the professional judges, and which category do you think he’s entered?

answer: The chocolate one.

I remove his chocolate pyramids from the tray like James Bond snipping the wire to prevent a nuclear holocaust. They’ve melted. I’m sweating like James Bond who’s just cut the wrong wire. The sous chef is bent double laughing at my misfortune, we are both crying but for different reasons. My next reference depends on that chocolate pyramid, I know this because chef told me before we left.

“You’d better ring him” I nodded in agreement and headed for the phone box praying that Black Death would strike me down before he answered…