Culinary students put their skills to the test at the Food Bank of Delaware

MILFORD, Del. – At the Food Bank of Delaware, high school students and military members put their culinary skills to the test in an MRE competition.

Crafting up a delicious yet easy-to-make meal was the objective for participants.

Recruiting retention commander for the Delaware National Guard, Trib Singh, said using Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs, as a base for each dish, helps competitors beef up their culinary skills and understand what it takes to be a chef at the military level.

“Soldiers eat those anytime we have training events. Those are normal things that we actually consume, so we wanted the civilians to understand sometimes we get really good ones, sometimes they’re not good, sometimes you have to spice them up to be better, and that’s what this event is all about,” Singh said.

With appetizers in front of the judges, culinary arts teacher, Gerald Allen, said he was impressed by the variety of dishes the chefs brought to the table,
but one meal in particular stood out to the food connoisseur.

“Those empanadas were really, really, really good for the first course. Those were a sleeper for me,” Allen said.

Tasked with showing students the bright side of the military, Singh hopes the students who participated in the competition walk away with a new desire to join the service, to apply their culinary skills.

“Maybe they look at us differently, and we’re not all just uniformed soldiers, but we do have skills. Whether it’s in food service or the jobs that we have, we’re soldiers first, but we all have individual skills,” Singh said.