Can we talk turkey here for a minute?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/12/2017 (3143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s this — the key to being a big-shot newspaper columnist is a willingness to sacrifice yourself to get the story.

Which is exactly what I did Tuesday morning, when, for the seventh year, I voluntarily sacrificed my stomach as a member of the expert judging panel at Red River College’s annual Iron Chef Turkey competition.

For the uninitiated, this is the annual holiday-season food fight, wherein eight of the college’s top student chefs are given slightly over two hours to whip up an appetizer and a main course, featuring whole turkeys they have whacked into bite-sized tidbits at the start of the contest.

So there I was Tuesday morning, about an hour after rolling out of bed, eating enough mouth-watering turkey dishes to put a small Scandinavian nation into a culinary coma for the duration of the holiday season.

I should stress here that there is no need to thank me. My reward is just knowing that I have done my bit to defend the public’s right to know, especially when it comes to the vital area of delicious dishes featuring turkey.

Along with me, the crackerjack judging panel consisted of my good buddy Jason Wortzman — a trained chef and director of marketing and product development for Granny’s Poultry — and turkey producers Barclay and Shelley Uruski, who have a 20,000-bird flock near Arborg, north of Winnipeg.

Jason, who invites me every year because he knows I am not the sort of journalist to turn his back on a free meal, said the annual culinary throwdown is partly to give the students a chance to display their skills, but also an opportunity to promote turkey as a protein that can be eaten year-round, not just during the holidays.

(Warning: Actual news tidbit ahead)

Judges Jason and Barclay, who is also chairman of Granny’s Poultry, said the past two years have been tough ones for turkey producers, with sales plummeting about 50 per cent nationwide.

“The festive season has changed,” Barclay explained as we waited for the first dishes to be brought steaming from the state-of-the-art kitchen of the college’s Paterson GlobalFoods Institute culinary school on Main Street. “We’re down about 50 per cent. People just aren’t buying turkey.

“Turkey sales right across Canada have been down the last two years. It’s devastated the market. Producers across Canada are cutting production. People aren’t eating it. We need to do things differently to promote turkey and get people eating it year-round.”

He noted a survey found millennials and newcomers to Canada are largely in the dark about how to prepare turkey.

“Americans eat double the turkey per capita that we do,” Barclay noted. “Americans eat about 15 pounds of turkey per capita, while Canadians eat just over seven pounds per person each year.”

(Alert: Actual news ends, regular column resumes)

Speaking of eating turkey, that’s exactly what we judges did. Over the course of an hour, we gobbled down such fowl fare as: turkey galantine with cranberry and jalapeño sauce; roasted turkey breast with Cointreau and ginger sauce and mashed sweet potatoes infused with star anise; turkey gnocchi; turkey roulade stuffed with goat cheese, cranberries and bacon; miniature turkey pot pies; turkey empanadas with apple cranberry compote; roasted red pepper and lime turkey croquettes with tomato salsa, pesto and spiced Greek yogurt; Asian steamed turkey dumplings in broth; cranberry turkey crostini with bacon and walnuts; and turkey scallopini in a French butter sauce with Parisian potatoes, to name just a few of the items we eagerly shoved down our gullets.

For those of you who have never taken part in a high-brow event of this nature, the judging process involves three all-important main steps:

Step No. 1 — Standing around, holding a clipboard with a long chain of drool dangling from the corner of your mouth, as you wait for the competitors’ dishes to be brought out of the kitchen;

Step No. 2 — Fighting with the other judges to see who can stick a fork in the first sample;

Step No. 3 — Making professional-sounding judging remarks — such as “Mmmmmmm!” and “Yummy!” — before you have even swallowed the first bite.

The point is, it is not easy judging a high-calibre holiday food battle of this nature. We judges agreed this year’s competition was the fiercest since the contest began about nine years ago.

“I think this was the best year yet,” judge Shelley gushed. “I was very impressed. It was the toughest year for judging. The flavours were outstanding. I could tell from the smells coming out of the kitchen it was going to be a tough year. Hopefully, these young chefs will stay in Winnipeg.”

After gorging ourselves on eight appetizers and eight main courses, we judges argued loudly among ourselves, then awarded this year’s Iron Chef Turkey crown to 21-year-old student chef Kat Bollenbach for her appetizer of a turkey Scotch egg on wilted spinach, and entrée of Asian-style turkey Kiev with carrot purèe, glazed beets and Israeli couscous.

“Oh my God! It’s crazy!” Bollenbach gushed after being declared the victor. “I’m super-happy. I can’t believe it honestly. Everything looked real amazing. Definitely a tough competition. This is my first time competing solo.”

Her secret? “Just do the best you can and everything will fall into place,” she explained. “Don’t fret over the little things and stay calm. If you freak out, it will all spiral down from there.”

Those are words to remember over the holidays, kids. You should remain calm and turkey on, so to speak. I personally will be curling up in the corner for a long turkey-induced winter’s nap.

Like I said earlier, you don’t have to thank me. It’s my job.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca