Joseph Matis
August 6, 2007
Felma Arceneaux
August 8, 2007
For the past two weeks, Nicholls State University has entertained 10 international, professional culinary chefs teaching them how to cook Southern cuisine as well as use Southern food products.
“Our hopes are that these high profile chefs will take the Southern products back to their native lands and then began exporting the products for use,” said Anne Parr, assistant dean at Nicholls’ John Folse Culinary Institute.
The annual summer culinary event has been held at Nicholls twice a year for the past five years as part of the Southern United States Trade Association (SUSTA) program, where chefs come to learn how to use Southern products.
The culinary institute dean Randy Cheramie said the program was formed to increase export of Southern U.S. foods and agricultural products, which could enhance the economic well being of the region.
Ten groups of chefs have trained under the SUSTA program at Nicholls. Chefs have come from as far away as India, Spain, Mexico and now the Caribbean Islands.
Last Thursday, the culinary chefs competed in a gumbo cook-off. Cheramie said the entire morning was dedicated to teaching the chefs how to make a roux, as well as the basics and history of gumbo in Louisiana.
The chefs are assigned a partner and the cook-off began.
First-time program participants Wendy Rahamut and Edwin Johnson won best overall gumbo with their Caribbean-flavored seafood gumbo.
Rahamut is former marketing executive-turned-culinary artist from Trinidad. “I was working in the corporate marketing, but then I wanted to follow my dream and become a culinary artist,” she said.
For the past 12 years, she has been establishing herself as a master chef with her own garment Caribbean magazine, television show and culinary school in Trinidad.
Johnson became a chef by accident nearly 36 years ago. “When I graduate high school I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” said the executive chef and culinary trainer who hails from the Bahamas. “I enrolled in a technical catering college and after I completed the program I decided on being a chef.”
Both Rahamut and Johnson use Southern products to make meals in the Caribbean – they just haven’t used them in this capacity before. “The ingredients are familiar but the cooking methods are different,” Rahamut said.
Johnson said the Caribbean chefs and the culinary institute’s instructors are great cooks in their own areas of expertise. “In the kitchen, you learn something from everyone,” he said. “In culinary arts, you never stop learning.”
Chefs that have participated in past courses have gone on to work with SUSTA in many of its generic promotions, which are sponsored by the organization to promote Southern agriculture to potential export markets.
Some chefs have also planned events at their own hotels or restaurants highlighting Southern U.S. foods. Johnson and Rahamut said if they have the opportunity to participate in the program again, they will because they love the Southern culture.
Johnson said they dabbled in Cajun Creole and Southern soul cuisine, the Carolinas and Florida foods and Tex-Mex.
All the chefs traveled to Chef John Folse’s Plantation Restaurant in Baton Rouge where they made jambalaya and crawfish etouffee. The other chefs include Dino Jagtiani, Henderson Butcher, Debra Sardinha-Metivien, Marlon Tobias, Bryan James, Neil Rolle, Elijan Bowe III and Christopher Chea.
“We immerse them in Southern cuisine like black pot cooking, barbecue, crawfish, gumbo, Tex-Mex, enchiladas and soul food,” Cheramie said.
The program concludes with a farewell dinner, where the group uses a standard pantry filled with Southern products. Cheramie said the chefs have the opportunity to make any dish they choose, whether it’s Southern or Caribbean.
“They have to plan a menu, elect an executive chef and plan the dinner from start to finish,” he said.
Cheramie said students and faculty look forward to the program every year. SUSTA pays for the chefs’ stay in Louisiana, the products used and the assistance of Nicholls’ culinary student workers.
“It’s good to have our students on hand to watch professional chefs from different backgrounds use the same products as they do everyday,” Cheramie said. ” We not only teach [the international students], but they teach us.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agriculture Service funds the program.
SUSTA is a non-profit agricultural export development association comprised of the Department of Agriculture. It includes the 15 Southern states – including Louisiana – and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Caribbean chefs prepare gumbo during annual summer culinary event sponsored by the Southern United States Trade Association and held at Nicholls State University. * Photo courtesy of DOUG KEESE
