On Saturday The Belize Tourism Board held its 9th annual Taste of Belize Competition in which Chefs and Bartenders from all across the country compete to display Belize's finest culinary talent. It was staged at the ITVET building and At the end of the night, it was Belize City's Calbert Santiago; a chef at D-Deck walked who walked away with the title of Professional Chef 2010. We spoke to him today….
Calbert Santiago, Professional Chef 2010
"All I did was I combine; they give us gibnut, beer and chocolate and chaya to combine all together. First time I have ever worked with gibnut, beer and chocolate. All of them were the first time. I have never cook gibnut in my life yet although I am a chef for the last 18 years since I start my profession at the Bellevue Hotel and as the taste of Belize start to come up then I start to move on, but i have never work with any of these product yet, so what I did was combine a spice rub, bake gibnut with a chocolate beer sauce, then for the starch I did a root sprockets which=h was coco, sweet
potato and the regular Irish potato and combine it together, mash it then fry it, then I did a version of their ratatouille which is vegetables with yellow ginger and cream, so it work out good for me; The judge they like it obviously, its a dish I would want to continue and work on, I never thought about beer and chocolate working but it works, I taste it and it was good. This is my 6th time. I have won it already in 2007 so this was a good step again for me to come back and prove myself, last year I was in and got chop early in the 1st round. So I went and I train myself a lot with my family; I just want to say thanks to my wife and my kids that supported me. What I did was train myself a lot at home."
Andrea Polanco
"So you've won before. Did you go in this competition with expectations to win?"
Calbert Santiago, Professional Chef 2010
"Yes I went in with a lot of confidence. I told myself that I would have pull this off because I prepare myself a lot so went in with a lot of confidence and I was prepare for any recipe they throw at us."
The competition is made up of four categories: Professional Chef, Bartender, Cake decorating and Best of Belize.
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