Camosun College Professional Cook Training student Sebastian Edwards won first place in the Victoria chapter of the Regional Jeune Chef Commis, a La Chaîne des Rotisseur cooking competition held in Vancouver on June 11.
Edwards says that his love of cooking stemmed from a love of eating, which led him to the Professional Cook Training program at Camosun. It was there that Culinary Arts chair David Lang approached him and asked if he would be interested in the competition; Edwards happily accepted the challenge.
While some students may enter something like this with a competitive mindset, Edwards didn’t approach the competition with a win-or-lose mentality. Instead, he viewed it as an opportunity to showcase his skills, network, and have fun doing what he loves.
“I wasn’t thinking about winning it,” he says. “My focus was finishing on time, because when you’re at these things the biggest thing is, you just want to get your stuff up on time. For me, personally, my thought wasn’t about winning it; that’s a horrible attitude to go into it with, if you’re worried about losing. You’re just there to learn stuff and have some fun.”
Edwards credits part of his success at the competition to the knowledge and support he obtained from Camosun, as well as his time spent at Langford cafe House of Boateng, where he currently works as an apprentice.
“I think, you know, [winning] was a product of Camosun and working at House of Boateng and everyone that’s had an impact on me,” says Edwards. “But yeah, Camosun definitely played a part in it, they helped me build confidence in myself.”
Before the competition, contestants were given different proteins to create two dishes with. For his starter, Edwards made a crab salad and mango ravioli followed by a main course of fir-crusted lamb rack with a lamb shank cabbage roll. To help ease his nerves, he created a plan that kept him on track while he prepared his meals.
“I practiced this, however many times, like I know exactly what I’m doing,” he says. “But sometimes the nerves kind of get to my head, so, it’s nice to have like a concrete thing to look at. Just to kind of calm down and ground myself and be like, ‘Okay, this is what I need to get done next,’ and then just keep moving.”
The stress of a high-pressure competition might be intimidating but Edwards believes it can be a valuable experience for students. He says that the pressure he felt during the competition is similar to working in a busy restaurant, which can be a necessary skill for culinary students.
“I know for culinary students, it’s that high kind of rush and moving very quickly that you get, like when you’re working at dinner service at a restaurant, working the line,” he says. “It’s a very high-paced environment and doing a competition is such a good way to kind of experience that and kind of help prepare yourself for that.”
After securing a victory in Vancouver, Edwards is now preparing for the National Jeune Chef Commis in Toronto in October.
“I’m very excited,” Edwards says. “It’ll be the farthest I’ve kind of gone away for something culinary. So, it’ll be a lot of fun, I’m looking forward to it. And there are some nerves there too, because it’s the national competition and it’s the highest I’ve ever competed in anything before.”