St Genevieve’s High School wins Mount Charles culinary challenge
Teenagers Demi-Louise Maguire and Bronagh McHeading, both 15-year-old pupils at St Genevieve’s High School in Belfast, have been named the 2015 winners of the Kitchen Whizz Kids cookery contest, beating stiff competition from seven other schools in Northern Ireland.
The winning meal, which was created on a £7.50 budget, was a marinated chicken and cherry tomato chargrilled kebab served with couscous and homemade flatbread.
Kitchen Whizz kids is organised by the Mount Charles Group, one of Ireland’s largest business support services organisations, and is supported by Business in the Community. The highly competitive cooking competition aims to promote healthy eating and generate interest in the catering industry.
This year saw more than 100 pupils take part in the heats, before the best two from each school participated in the final, which was held at Abbey Community College in Monkstown and judged by Mount Charles Group Senior Development Culinary Chefs Marcus Lemon and Brian Quinn.
The schools in the final were – Abbey Community College (Newtownabbey); Aquinas Grammar School (Belfast); Ballymena Academy (Ballymena); De La Salle College (Belfast); Rathmore Grammar School (South Belfast); St Dominic’s High School (Belfast); St Genevieve’s High School (Belfast) and St Malachy’s College (Belfast).
Dervla Strong from Business in the Community’s Education Team explains: “We were delighted to be involved with the Mount Charles Kitchen Whizz Kids Competition again this year. The schools were given a brief to create a healthy, locally-sourced meal on a £7.50 budget in teams of two. Mount Charles’ chefs visited all schools and each school had to select a team to represent them in the final. The final was held in Abbey Community College where the teams had one hour to whip up their meals, before two of The Mount Charles Group’s most experienced chefs judged their efforts and named a winning pair.”
“The standard of cooking this year simply exceeded anything we’ve seen in this competition before. The flavours, the skill, the teamwork and the presentation from each of our finalists was just superb,” said Cathal Geoghegan, Managing Director of the Mount Charles Group.
“What each of these teams have demonstrated is just how achievable it is to eat well on a budget – it just takes a bit of creativity and confidence to try new things.
“For us the competition is incredibly important on two levels. It allows us to use our expertise to give something back to the community and it creates an opportunity for young people to enhance and develop their skills, while developing a better understanding of what eating well really means. The competition is also about nurturing new talent and making young people aware of the career possibilities within the hospitality industry and the contribution they could make to it in the future,” he said.
Fionnuala McAllister, Home Economics teacher at St Genevieve’s High School added: “This was our first year of entering the competition and we came with no expectation of winning – we’re completely overwhelmed that we won, particularly given the other amazing entries we saw.
“I have to say though that it was very well deserved. Our team was completely committed to the challenge, practising over and over again in their own time to make sure their meal was perfect,” she said.
This challenge is just one example of how business can be a force for good and inspire its future workforce. If your business needs help to get involved in education, please e-mail emma.morrison@bitcni.org.uk or call (028) 9046 0606.
