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Our long-standing and experienced cookery teacher Christian Tötzl recently spent a week in India. Read his report here about the Cooking Olympics for the world's best young talents, in which GAFA was the only school in Austria to take part.
As a cooking teacher, I would never have dreamed of being able to take part in a competition like this. I may not have cooked myself, but coaching a student is a great opportunity. Mind you, we were the only school in Austria to take part in the Cooking Olympics in India. The challenge is quickly explained - a technical test consisting of five different specified cutting and turning techniques, a vegetarian dish made from at least 14 ingredients and crêpe souflée. The next round consisted of three different egg dishes, a chicken dish and a Paris Brest patisserie dish.
Student Amirzhan Yestay from our 3 FKB (2023/2024) took the opportunity to win the elimination at school. This was followed by weeks of strenuous training sessions in every practical lesson. I worked out a schedule and, together with my energetic colleagues, implemented it in the respective cooking and patisserie lessons.
A special highlight of the Olympiad in India was the Day of Nations, where each of the 65 nations present prepared their national dish. The opportunity to taste all the dishes was the main focus and opened up many personal conversations with the individual coaches and students. Friendships developed far beyond the Olympics. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the final, but nobody can take this experience away from us. And the Olympic idea was also important to us - "being there is everything!"
Many prizes were awarded at the closing ceremony, including a sustainability award. Here, GAFA was among the top 5 nations.
One thing should be noted, even though there was tight time management in India - bus rides, domestic flights to Pune and Kolkata: Making friends, getting to know a slightly different culture - it was a lot of fun and it really paid off to take part in this competition. The hospitality of the local students was sensationally professional.
We would like to thank the gastronomy department, the hospitality college and of course all the teachers involved, without whom this challenge would not have been possible.
