Our Culinary Management students excel in the Imagin’Maïs competition

Three pairs of Bachelor’s students in International Culinary Management from Institut Paul Bocuse took part in the 2021 edition of Imagin’Maïs, a competition which each year features culinary and nutritional innovations centred on the use of corn. Congratulations to Damien and Mattéo who won a prize and to Camille, Marat, Lisa and Louis for their place in the final!

An inter-school competition that rewards culinary innovation

The Imagin’Maïs prize is organised each year by the Corn industry professionals. For its 4th edition, the event has developed into a full-scale inter-school culinary competition, with the final taking place on 11 February this year.

The principle behind the event is for up-and-coming culinary talents to compete in pairs preparing an original corn-based recipe of their own creation, which they then present to a grand jury of professionals from a wide range of backgrounds. Two prizes are awarded for culinary innovation, one awarded by the jury, the other awarded by Internet visitors who followed the final live online.

After long weeks of work to create and rehearse their dish, our amazing duo of Damien and Mattéo won one of the competition prizes for their 3 pieces “Maïs part en mer” (Corn goes to sea), “L’origine” (Origins) and “L’oublié” (The forgotten one), accompanied by a beverage called “Maï’jito”. Congratulations also to Lisa, Louis, Camille and Marat for their magnificent achievements which enabled them to reach the final of the competition.

Our finalists Camille and Marat, tell us about their experience of the competition

Can you briefly introduce your duo?  

We are two third-year students on the Bachelor’s degree in Culinary Arts Management, majoring in Gastronomic Cooking and Pastry-making.

Why did you decide to take part in this competition? What motivated you?

The competition was presented to us by our training Chef Olivier Pons and our nutrition teacher Nicolas Tête as part of our programme. For us, it was an opportunity to represent our School and its values, to challenge our skills and know-how but also to meet professionals from different branches of the trade.

What did you learn from this competition?

It was our first professional cooking competition, so taking part in it was an opportunity to understand how a competition is organised and run.

If you could take part in the competition again, what would you do differently? 

We learned a lot in doing this competition and of course we also made mistakes. If we could do it again, I think we would choose to make a hot regional dish to better represent corn.