Rice Breaker Brings Back Great Memories 5.20.14

I was at the Embassy Suites Convention Center putting up displays of local produce, fruit and flowers on Saturday April 26th 2014 for the American Culinary Federation’s Rice Breaker event at the annual conference of 300 Chefs being hosted in Charleston this year. Ward Morgan approached me and said “I have someone you need to see”.

Flashback to 1987

Chefs representing 38 states arrived in Charleston for the American Culinary Federation’s inaugural Governor’s Seafood Challenge. This was an extraordinarily high profile event for both the Federation Chapter and Charleston to host in the early days of restaurant development: a seriously big national culinary deal for what felt like a very small town in those days.

The event was held in the Geodosic Dome, a massive Space Age structure now demolished, at Charlestown Landing with imported kitchen stations staged by Berlin’s Restaurant Supply. Limehouse Produce was responsible for assembling the Mystery Boxes of produce for the competition and Crosby’s Seafood for the Mystery Boxes of fish. There were heats to score the participants on their ability to prepare 10 portions only using Mystery Box items and basic sundries from a communal kitchen. The other component of the contest was that each Chef had to prepare a dish using a fish or seafood from their native state.

The winner was Victor Gielisse, now Vice President of the Culinary Institute of America, second was Elka Gilmore, now a renowned California Chef, but I was on my way with Ward to see my personal favorite from the competition 27 years ago, Stafford DeCambra, the representative for Hawaii. We both remembered hilarious details from the event and could not believe that it was so long ago. In fact, we had the date pinpointed at 1990 until Ward told me today that it was 1987.

-Andrea Limehouse