A Victual Victory for the U.S.

By Michael Demarest

Turning hots and colds into golds at the Culinary Olympics

While American athletes lament losing a chance at gold medals in the Moscow Olympics, U.S. competitors of different stripes and talents are gloating this week over a bonanza of coveted international awards. In Frankfurt, at the quadrennial Culinary Olympics--officially titled the International Culinary Art Exhibition--a four-man U.S. team for the first time beat out all other entrants in the hot food dish category. In the cold dish department the American squad also earned gold medals. Individual team members won a dozen golds and a silver. Pastry Chef Helmut Loibl from St. Louis was one of only two cuisiniers in the contest to win a gold medal "with excellence" and a perfect score from some 25 judges. Lyde Buchtenkirch of Rhinebeck, N.Y., the first woman member of a U.S. team, not only garnered a gold but also won a special award for the best entry in the entire show with a 3-ft.-high bread sculpture (molded dough covered with a brown glaze and baked) called American Bounty. The creation depicted cowboys, American Indians, farmers and native grains and vegetables.

The Culinary Olympics, which have been held since 1895, are the World Series of commercial cookery. This year's competition attracted almost 800 top cooks from some 40 countries. Entries--and entrees--were judged not only for deliciousness but also for nutritiousness, economy and skill of preparation. (The French, while masters of no-expense-spared gourmet cooking, have never come in better than third at Frankfurt; they sulked at home this year.) The first U.S. team entered the Olympics in 1956 and got shut out. But in 1968 the Yank chefs were able to cop 16 golds, more than any other national team that year, and in 1976 they won 30 medals, a record high for individual competition. Each team must make 100 plates of its hot and cold dishes, which are sold at a public restaurant. One sign of success is the speed at which they sell out. This year the American dishes went like, well, hot cakes.

Each national team had to prepare its hot dishes in cramped portable kitchens; a measure of their effort, closely noted by the judges, is that the cooks do not bump into one another or bruise sensitive egos. The U.S. chefs are chosen on the basis of their recipes and expertise by the American Culinary Federation, backed by Kraft Inc.

Each team produces representative national dishes. The runners-up this year were Australia (smoked lamb in eucalyptus leaves, sauteed shrimp on fish patties in hollandaise sauce) and South Korea (rolled beef, stuffed duck with apple rings and chestnuts). The Americans produced sea bass stuffed with crabmeat and fried in batter; also, turkey breast stuffed with Virginia ham, liver and giblets, then baked and served rollatine. Both dishes took months to perfect but cost less than $3 a serving to prepare, not including labor costs. Explained Richard Schneider, a New Jersey restaurateur: "We have to be bottom-line conscious these days. You can't make money serving lobster any more, and swordfish isn't much cheaper. So we look at the lowly, ugly sea bass and try to make something of it."

Observed U.S. Team Manager Fer dinand Metz, a veteran of Manhattan's Plaza Hotel and the late lamented Le Pavilion, and now an executive of the HJ. Heinz Co.: "We are all here to advance the art if possible, to learn from one another, to pick up a trick or two that may save us a little money or reduce wastage in a business where economics gets more important every day. And to win a few medals, of course." Like U.S. winemakers in international competition, the team showed that North American cuisine, drawing on a bounty of natural resources, has come of age.

--By Michael Demarest.

Reported by Lee Griggs/Frankfurt

With reporting by Lee Griggs

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