Chef Jason Hall bound for Culinary Olympics

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

Leading up to the second round of tryouts for the American Culinary Federation’s Culinary Team USA, Certified Master Chef Jason Hall served his hot food dish every Friday night for members of Hammock Dunes Club, where he is the executive chef.

Practice paid off, and he has been selected to the team to represent the U.S. in international culinary competitions.

When I sat down with Hall in 2012 after he received his CMC distinction, the 2016 Internationale Kochkunst Ausstellung, commonly referred to as the Culinary Olympics, in Erfurt, Germany, was on his list of long-term goals, but he thought he would take a couple years off first. Little did he know that just one year later he would be part of an 11-chef team to represent the country in Germany.

“It’s extremely humbling,” he said while sitting in the empty ball room at Hammock Dunes. “It’s a huge honor to be able to represent the United States cooking and doing what I love to do. There is a select few that get this opportunity, and for me, it’s that next step and it’s going to provide growth and development.”

Hall is the only chef from Florida on the team and is joined by Joseph Albertelli, of Rye, N.Y.; Brian Campbell, of Charlotte, N.C.; George Castaneda, of Franklin, Tenn.; Shawn Culp, of Bridgeville, Pa.; Ben Grupe, of St. Louis; Aaron Haga, of Colorado Springs, Colo.; Adam Munroe, of Chestnut Hill, Mass.; Alison Murphy, of Indian Wells, Calif.; Matthew Seasock, of Fort Worth, Texas; and Corey Siegel, of White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

“To be on a team of this caliber, the decision was not just based on how well the chefs can cook,” said Certified Executive Chef Joseph Leonardi, team manager. “The judges and I selected the chefs who have the personal drive and passion and want to be part of ACF Culinary Team USA for the duration.”

Similar to the traditional athletic Olympics, which brings together the best athletes from around the world, every four years, the IKA, founded in 1896, serves as a world-class venue for talented chefs from around the globe.

The ACF Culinary Team USA began competing internationally in 1956. The 1960 team captured the first world championship honor at the IKA and repeated the distinction in 1980, 1984 and 1988 by taking the prestigious hot-food competition and establishing a new world record for the most consecutive gold-medal wins. In 2002, ACF Culinary Team USA had the highest score in restaurant-style cooking among 32 nations, and in 2008, the regional team won the overall world championship title in the regional category.

At the last IKA in 2012, ACF Culinary National Team USA won a silver medal in cold-food presentation — only one gold medal was awarded — and a silver medal in the hot-food kitchen, placing sixth overall.

For the 2016 competition, Hall hopes that his team can take the gold once again. But before they get to Germany, there are a series of preliminary competitions. They aren’t qualifiers but more like practice competitions in the way that in cycling, the Tour of Spain is a practice for the Tour de France.

The first international competition for the team will be at the 2014 Villeroy & Boch Culinary World Cup, in Luxembourg. The following year, international teams will come to the U.S. for the American Culinary Classic.

In the meantime, all team members have been issued assignments to work on in preparation for the first competition. The goal is to iron things out and get a feel for some global trends.

But the beauty and the challenge is to present American food in a modern and flavorful way. Because American cooking has been heavily influenced by other cultures, Hall said that the team will achieve this by using ingredients that are known to the United States, such as cod and crawfish, and flavor profiles that are American. He also said it’s about having balance between textures and flavors. The team wants to use techniques that are more modern, and that are influenced by other countries, but the chef said it’s the outcome that is most important.

“The beautiful point of this industry is that there is always a new technique,” Hall said. “I’m really excited to have this bond of chefs who have the same common goal and who are all forward thinkers and looking at food in a different light. It’s an amazing learning opportunity.”