Hungary won a bronze medal at the Bocuse D’Or world competition
Last year, we reported that the Hungarian team (prepared by chef Bence Dalnoki, commis Patrik Nyikos, coach Tamás Széll and Szabina Szulló) won the silver medal in the European final of the Bocuse D’Or competition held in Budapest, thus qualifying for the world competition in Lyon, where they faced 24 teams. , and they were hoping for a podium. Dalnoki is the sous chef of the two Michelin-starred Stand, and the chefs are the owners of the Stand restaurants.
The Hungarian team trained for this competition for four months, they prepared it again and again, measured the raw materials to the gram, as allowed by the competition regulations, and cooked the competition plates every day during the preparation. The rules are terribly complicated, moreover, they are often changed, while previously you could not bring prepared vegetables, now you can take peeled vegetables, but you can no longer slice them, cleanliness and technique are strictly monitored, and these little things can mean a lot of time. It is a particularly difficult genre because the taste of the jury must also be met, but the most modern technological requirements must also be met, these tasks must also be completed, all in time.
There were two competition tasks that each team had to complete, the bowl and the plate:
The theme of the dish, which is usually some kind of meat, should now consist of monkfish, St. James clams and mussels. Although it is impossible to know in advance how exactly the task will be solved, social media insights showed that the devilfish skeleton was taken apart, boiled and then glued back together as a sculpture.
The plate task is quite striking this year, as the team must prepare a three-course children’s menu, of which one course must be vegan, the other vegetarian, with eggs, and pumpkin is a mandatory element. The goal, as the organizers of the competition say, is to promote healthy eating. In addition to one of the world’s most famous female chefs, Dominique Crenn, the jury also includes children to make the verdict truly authentic.
More and more these days detail was revealed about the Hungarian competition plates.
The Budapest bowl, which was inspired by the Freedom Bridge, consisted of the following elements:
- Monkfish with smoked mussels, dark algae and lemon sourdough bread with croutons
- Roses made from pickled root vegetables, liquid potatoes, herbs and aged cheese
- Beetroot and Tokaj borscht jelly, soft onion with black pepper and sage, crispy chicory
- the “Hungarian feast” consisting of black clam tortellini flavored with goulash spices, blue clam sauce flavored with mild horseradish and chives, seasonal Hungarian vegetables from the forest and fields
- Roasted monkfish sauce with brown butter and Tokaj borscht
Elements of the plate task (Feed the children)
- Cold pumpkin soup, cucumber stuffed with pumpkin and parsley, foamy oat cream with mild horseradish, green peas marinated in smoked oil
- Mirror egg with mushrooms, onion, pickled pumpkin, lemon sage and creamy egg yolk
- A sauce made from aged cheese, with pumpkin and pumpkin oil
- Yoghurt foam with liquid pumpkin, vanilla, apple and raspberry, pumpkin cake
- Crispy “earth” surprise, with chocolate, hazelnuts and lemon zest
Hungary and the Bocuse D’Or
The Bocuse D’Or is the most prestigious cooking competition in the world, and it has been held every two years since 1987, guaranteed by chef Paul Bocuse. Hungarian chefs have been participating in the world competition since 2013, and they are getting better and better places. The first domestic success can be attributed to Tamás Széll, who won the European final in 2016. In 2015, Gábor Molnár made it, and in 2019, Ádám Pohner (who since then has his own restaurant in a small village, we wrote about him just a few days ago), and in 2021, István Veres competed in Lyon. Since 2013, the state has been supporting the preparation for the competition and its organization in increasing amounts, already at the 2016 competition in Hungary they talked about amounts of around 600 million, these were already successful billion-dollar items at last year’s event, the Dalnokis are also supported by the sponsors.
It is also a competitive sport that is difficult to succeed with a small budget, as you have to keep up with the technological equipment of the richest countries in the world, and you have to prepare and assemble the plates made up of many elements with the most modern kitchen techniques, which are more works of art than plain food. Although in the early days the French dictated the competitions, with the advancement of the Nordic movement, the Scandinavians came to the podium, usually Norwegians, Danes and Icelanders perform the best, the streak was broken once by America in 2017, and then last year a French returned to the top . By the way, the Hungarian team has been supporting the preparation of Rasmus Kofoed for years, who has been on the podium and as a winner in the competition several times, and last year the restaurant he runs, Geranium, became the best in the world.
The role of the cooking competition in the gastro revolution
The domestic competition successes began 10 years ago as a result of the work of the Hungarian Gastronomic Association (MGE). Hosts started with professional organizations are the processes on the basis of which we are now referred to as the gastronomic revolution, and as a result, there are many restaurants in the country today that are on a par with European standards.
Tamás Széll always participates in the competitions and workshops of the MGE, but the head of the association, Molnár B. Tamás, later stated that Széll turned against him, even though it really started with the intellectual and financial support of MGE. The organization split into two in 2016, the Pannon Gastronomic Academy was established (then led by Roy Zsidai, now under the leadership of Balázs Csapody), from where they took over the organization of the Bocuse D’Or competitions and the necessary state subsidies. Since then, the Hungarian Tourism Agency has been allocating an ever-larger budget to the flourishing of top-notch domestic gastronomy, and has also invested a lot of money in ensuring that there are Michelin-starred restaurants in the country, and there have been; then more and more people think that the world’s most famous restaurant scam is corrupt, based on the judgments of non-inspectors and unreliable – we wrote more in this article.
The two gastronomic associations are not only opposed to each other in that one no longer receives state funds, while the other does, but they also think differently about the flourishing of Hungarian gastronomy. While the Hungarian Gastronomy Association started the revolution at the basics, renewing chef training, supporting quality raw materials and producers, improving the small restaurants and taverns, it would have started the flourishing of Hungarian gastronomy, moving upwards from there; meanwhile, the Pannon Gastronomic Academy and the Bocuse D’Or Academy believe that energy must be invested in and developed in top gastronomy, and that innovation will “trickle down” from there.
He spoke about this approach In the capital city podcast Zoltán Hamvas, who is the head of the Bocuse D’Or Academy and co-owner of the Stand restaurants: the Bocuse D’Or final held in Budapest last year was a huge success, and the foreign media attention that Hungary received during it was worth tens of billions of forints. , so much more than what was invested in organizing the competition. Hamvas believes that these competition successes “put Hungarian gastronomy on the world map”, and that the Bocuse D’Or results of Hungarian chefs also contribute to the fact that there are more and more good restaurants here, and that this is why more tourists travel here.
In the meantime, however, after the corona virus, many domestic restaurants were destroyed by the virus, there was a huge labor shortage, and the subsequent economic crisis, the hugely increased energy prices, and the burdens caused by food inflation kept restaurants and patisseries closing.
According to Hamvas, the restaurants that close during the crisis are those that do not provide good service: in ruined places, untalented people did not sell good products or did not invest their money wisely. They stayed afloat in the Stand because they cleverly reinvested their money a long time ago, for example by switching to LED burners. He doesn’t see that a quality product isn’t worth giving people money for, people buy a quality product at an expensive price, according to him, 2,000 HUF cake prices are ordinary for top quality, and it’s okay if mass producers go bankrupt.
He believes that top gastronomy and the people who are attracted to it and can afford it should be supported, and these people will then pull Hungary’s mediocre restaurants with them. And those who don’t will bleed to death, and that’s not a problem, according to him, it needs to be cleansed, since it’s not right to keep restaurants alive just to provide jobs. According to Hamvas, the Scandinavian example can be followed by the Hungarians, who invested a lot of money and conscious planning in order to be the world’s trend setters. It seems that this plan is currently working, as the Hungarian team finished third after the two strongest competing Scandinavian countries.