Croatian Culinary Federation Activity report – 2014

Activity report – 2014

Croatian Culinary days

Croatian Culinary Days are the most important annual event of Croatian culinary profession aimed at popularization of Croatian cuisine and culinary heritage. Manifestation is encouraging chefs to promote and use local food and agricultural products. This year the 11th Croatian Culinary Days were held in Umag, Istria in hotel Sol Garden Istra from 18 till 22 October under the auspices of the President of the Republic and the Ministry of Tourism. The event hosted culinary contests and rich culinary educational program. State chef champion is Rozalija Neralić, chef from the restaurant Cvjetno naselje, SC Zagreb, and State pastry chef champion is Ivana Vidakovic, pastry chef at the restaurant Valamar Riviera Hotel in Poreč. Croatian Culinary days also hosted the 9th Camellia Cup competition for students of secondary vocational schools for professions chef and pastry chefs, and the best young chefs are Matthew Tomašković and Marin Sambolek from Varazdin Economic School. The best young pastry chef is a student Ana-Marija Dorotić from Economic, trade and catering school in Samobor. In addition to the competitive part of Croatian Culinary Days, professional chefs and amateurs were able to participate in culinary workshops led by top local and foreign chefs and pastry chefs.

Croatian Culinary Cup

Croatian Culinary Cup is an overall competition that consists of several smaller culinary competitions. Every competition has a theme and they are held throughout Croatia during whole year. Besides the overall recognition of chefs the goal of this competition is presentation and enrichment of distinctive Croatian culinary offerings. A special task of these contests is creative contribution to shaping the culinary recognition of local communities, and thereby improving the comprehensiveness and attractiveness of overall Croatian tourism offer. In the year 2014, we organized 5 events held in Kutina, Vinkovci, Donja Stubica, Bjelovar and Zagreb. We also organized another competition for young chefs not older then 23 years in Varazdinske Toplice. There were over 40 chefs and pastry chefs involved in the competition but the best was Erich Glavica from Koprivnica. He was rewarded with the big crystal ladle and many financial and sponsor prises.

CRO TOP 10

Cro Top 10 is an invitational competition of the best chefs ranked by Croatian Culinary Federation for the previous year. The competition took place in February from 20 to 23 at the Zagreb Fair in front of the audience. Best of the best, from a total of 10, was Tomislav Karamarko.

Members of the Section for the culinary art gave the support to the competitors and had an interactive workshop, prepared a simple exhibits made out of fruits and vegetables and showed their skills to visitors of the Zagreb Fair. CRO TOP 10 is part of the four-day event at Zagreb Fair, which contains a series of tasting and presentation of sweet, but also those traditional dishes. So many chefs and pastry chefs presented their cooking skills preparing traditional dishes from Zagreb, Varaždin and Slavonija.

Youth cup

On December 9 Varaždin Spa held the youth Cup “Golden Nymph”, organized by the Varazdin County Chefs Association, Croatian Culinary Federation, Rotary Club Varazdin, Varazdin County and Hotel Minerva. This traditional culinary and tourist event presented authentic dishes from Varazdin county among the competitor dishes. Visitors could see the exhibition of products of local foods and wines from Varazdin county and participate in workshops that have presented how to make traditional dishes. The event was complete with a show and competition for young chefs of Varazdin County who made a contribution with their creations by preparing cold platters, main courses and desserts.

WACS CHEFS CONGRESS Stavanger In the period from 02 to 06 July, the Croatian Culinary Federation participated at the World culinary congress, held in the Norwegian Stavanegeru. Three Croatian delegates took part in many discussions on various global culinary topics. The congress defined guidelines for the development of WACS in the coming period and emphasized the importance of life-long education, the young chef, and most important humanitarian activities. Within the Congress, there was a food fair with culinary innovations and individual finals of prestigious culinary competition Global Chefs Challenge, Hans Bueschkens Young Chefs Challenge and Global Pastry Chefs Challenge. The qualification of these events were attended by the Croatian national culinary champions, Andjelko Levanić and Zlatko Novak, but failed to qualify to the finals.

Croatian Culinay Academy

Croatian Culinary Academy continued its work in 2014 in the culinary cabinet at Trakoscan where where the Academy participants have excellent working conditions in a great atmosphere of the hotel and wonderful surroundings of a near by castle. One of the goals of the Croatian Culinary Federation is the professional training of chefs so we organized numerous culinary workshops on different topics. All workshops, lectures and presentations included more than 200 participants. Croatian Culinary Academy has realized 22 professional workshops for different participants, which were held on different topics in the cabinet in Trakoscan, in Zagreb and within The event Craotaina Culinary Days in Umag. The workshops lasted oneor two days depending on the width of the topic.

Croatian culinary team

International Master Cup Sarajevo

First International Culinary Master Cup was held in Sarajevo on 07 and 08 February at which featured participants from seven countries in the region. Within the Cup organizers have offered a variety of culinary workshops and so visitors could participate and learn more about the culinary heritage of Croatia, Slovenias traditional cuisine, Serbian authentic dishes, Halal standards and the skills in the culinary artistic was demonstrated by the Section for culinary art froma Croatian Culinary Federation. In the culinary competition, the first place went to Slovenia and the second place and the silver medal went to the Croatian representatives. World Culinary Cup, Luxemburg

From 22 to 27 November, the Croatian chefs and pastry chefs have presented them selfs on one of the largest culinary festival in the world – the World Culinary Cup in Luxembourg. 35 memebres from the Croatian Culinary Federation were in Luksemburg: National senior culinary team, national junior culinary team, the regional team of Varazdin County and three chefs and pastry chefs who have performed in individual categories. Performance of Croatian representatives was rated as the best so far in the international arena and has won a total of one gold, three silver and two bronze medals.

The Croatian team also visited the Croatian society in Luxembourg for whom the members of the Croatian Culinary Federation made a small workshop and demonstrated how to make several traditional Croatian dishes. In addition to Croatia, the event was attended by another 55 other countries; 590 chefs and pastry chefs in individual categories, 30 senior national teams, 15 junior, six regional junior teams and 48 regional senior team, which overall had more than 1500 culinary masters.

Humanitarian activities

In May 2014 Eastern Croatia was flooded. Croatian Culinary Federation joined the many other humanitarian workers and collected humanitarian aid for the afflicted. So in the event “Croatian Tastes” held in May in Varazdin we collected 35,000.00 croatian kuna to help the victims of the floods. At the final competition of the Croatian Culinary Cup at the Sheraton Hotel, the guests with their donations collected additional 1,870.00, which was immediately handed over to representatives of the Red Cross. At the same event Slovenian chef Josef Oseli gave them also a check with the amount of 6,000.00 euros collected by the Chefs without borders.

World Chefs Day

On the World Chefs Day, October 20, members of the Croatian Culinary Federation visited the Home for the Aged and Infirm Novigrad and primary school of Mary and Line in Umag, where they were greeted by students and children from Brtonigla kindergarten. The members of the Croatian Culinary Federation have divided the cakes which they brought with them. The cakes were made on the Croatian Culinary day by competitors. The children enjoyed the cakes very much and afterwards put on a shor musical show for the chefs and pastry chefs.

Magazine “CHEF”

The magazine was launched in July 2002, on the initiative of culinary professionals. Since the summer of 2003, the magazine is the official journal of the Croatian Culinary Federation. CHEF is primarily intended for the professional chefs, but also all those who are in any way, professional or amateur, linked to the kitchen and gastronomy. It is the first magazine about cooking in which the main role have chefs, and the topics covered are closely related to cooking, hospitality and chefs education.

All members of the Croatian Culinary Federation receive the magazine free of charge. Among our subscribers are many hotels, as well as numerous restaurants and catering facilities in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.