Photo by Jenny Kirk Southwest Minnesota State University culinology students (from left) Keaton Crowley, Gabby Tellijohn, Madison Merritt and Jose Pedroza recently took second place in the Research Chef Association Student Culinology Competition.

MARSHALL

For the first time in Research Chef Association history, first and second place in the national student culinology competition went to the same academic institution — Southwest Minnesota State University.

The team of junior Dean Zinda and seniors Clarissa Geisel, Alexandra Froman and Megan Forster earned top honors, but SMSU’s team consisting of seniors Madison Merritt, Jose Pedroza, Gabby Tellijohn and Keaton Crowley finished closely behind in second place.

“It’s cool that we got first and second,” Pedroza said.

Merritt, the team leader, said the overall experience was a lot of fun.

“It was a lot of hard work, though,” Merritt said. “But it was definitely worth it, especially learning how to connect with industry people. That was a big takeaway for me.”

Tellijohn said finishing so high in the prestigious contest is huge.

“I think the most cool experience was being able to connect with everyone in the industry at the conference and just being able to put this on your resume,” she said. “It really makes you stand out from everyone else.”

Pedroza said he liked that the competition simulated the real culinology industry.

“I like that we did what people actually do in this field,” Pedroza said. “We got to practice it and go through the whole process. It was a good experience.”

Crowley said it was extremely challenging to “bring a product from concept to market in the span of six months.”

“We just learned a lot,” he said.

Merritt said the lack of response from some vendors was also challenging.

“You’d email them and say, ‘Hey, can I get a price on this?’ or ‘Can you tell me more about this?’ and sometimes they wouldn’t email you back right away,” she said. “So you had to learn how to not pester them, but be like, ‘Hey, did you get a chance to look at that?’ or ‘We could really use this’ — just how to be assertive and take charge.”

The team called its dish “Frits ‘n’ Grits.”

“The idea started from the traditional shrimp and grits and then we decided to do a fusion cuisine, which is kind of popular with the millennials now,” Merritt said. “So we did an Asian southern fusion. We ended up making coconut milk grits with stir-fry vegetables, a chili-peach sauce and then a shrimp fritter. It was definitely one of the more unique products we saw in the competition.”

Crowley said the shrimp was one of the most challenging parts of the product.

“Just getting the shrimp to work together in the context of the dish was challenging,” he said. “Keeping the fritter crispy was another challenge we had.”

Pedroza said the team started with shrimp sausage and then decided to go with the shrimp fritter. Merritt said the binding and the texture of the fritter was also a struggle.

“That was one of the most difficult parts, just making it appealing,” she said.

The highlight of the dish was also transformed.

“Originally, we started with a lot of grits and we had the other parts as sides,” Merritt said. “But then after we went to Schwan’s the first time, they were like, ‘The fritter is your star of the dish,’ so we toned down the grits and we focused more on the shrimp fritter aspect of the dish.”

While the shrimp was Crowley’s focus, Pedroza was in charge of the peach sauce. Tellijohn was tasked with the reheating process at the competition.

“When we microwaved our frozen products, I was working through that with the judges, to make sure that turned out,” she said.

Pedroza, a Marshall native, said he felt the team’s concept is what put them in the top two. After being judged on proposals, only five teams — including one from Canada — were selected to compete in the finals.

“I feel like the other schools didn’t put anything new on the table,” he said. “I think what made ours stand out was that it was a blend of Asian culture and southern culture. You need something new. You can’t just be doing the same thing.”

The team put in a lot of work, including time over Christmas break in order to meet the proposal deadline.

“We were on Christmas break and me and (Pedroza) were like working in here together, video-chatting the others, pulling everything together while we were on break,” Merritt said. “So break didn’t really start until December 23.”

All four seniors are confident they’ve made solid career choices and are excited about what the future holds for them and the culinology industry.

“I’m probably going to get a masters in food science,” Pedroza said.

Crowley has no immediate plans, but he believes a research and development career, possibly as a culinary consultant, would suit him nicely.

“It would be like a research chef, either for food service or industrial, where you’d develop recipes for restaurants or a big corporation,” Crowley said.

Tellijohn is still looking for a summer internship.

“After that, I’ll just be jumping into the workforce,” she said. “It’ll be somewhere for research and development.”

Merritt has an internship at a bakery in Minneapolis.

“I’ll be working with their food sanitation,” she said. “I’ll do that for the summer an then be on a job search. I realized at the conference that I’m really interested in the all-natural stuff and things that are better for the environment, so I’d be really interested in improving products like that.”