Amador Heritage Days Cornbread cook-off.
Two weekends ago, I had the honor to be a judge at the Amador Heritage Days Cornbread cook-off. The event was a great festival with wagon rides, chili cook-off, exhibitors of antiques, mountain men and food. The weather was perfect and the cook-off went smoothly without a hitch. There were three teams competing with their best recipes, all being cooked in Dutch ovens. Two teams were first time beginners and one team had competed before.
With a prompt 10:00am start the teams started cooking. All ingredients had to be prepared on site and cooked over coals. No pressureat all! I can tell you that they had a great time doing this, everyone was sneaking around to peak at what the competitors were doing, laughing and joking. Everyone had to interact with the crowds of people showing up to see what was happening. This was part of the cook-off, interaction and sportsmanship.
Judging was not easy and as you can imagine. Everyone had to be judged on the following with each being worth 5 points:
- Overall appeal = originality, creative ingredients, good recipe, good sportsmanship. Public interaction.
- Appearance & presentation = visually appealing, pleasing aroma.
- Execution = cooked just right (not over or under done), cooked evenly. No burnt spots.
- Taste = good flavor combination seasoning, texture.
- Dressed in 1800 outfits or made an attempt to. (1 point)
- Clean cooking practices and area.
26 points possible. 26 possible points for the judge to screw up on. 26 possible reasons to disagree with the judge. It was tough! they all tasted great, everyone did a fantastic job and everyone scored very high.
Here’s the results:
- 1st – Karen Phillips and son, Pot of Gold team.
- 2nd – Tom and Joyce Reese, Team Iron Man
- 3rd – Dean and Maureen Wilson, Dutch Oven Amigo’s
- Popular vote – Dean and Maureen Wilson, Dutch Oven Amigos
Now I have to explain the Popular vote. Anyone who wish to could purchase a taster’s ticket. That meant that after the judges had a sample you could taste the contestants dish for a dollar and cast your vote for the best dish. Great! Me against the crowds………. Well as you can imagine again, popular vote was against my vote and 3rd place won the popular vote. Go fiqure! Well all I can say is, Dean and Maureen, brown the top of your Corn Bread and I’ll give you first place also. 
Congrats to all of the cooks and cudo’s to Bridget Ebert for putting this event together.
Here are the pictures from the event and I will be posting each recipe here in the next week.
“Get out of the kitchen! Light the fire! Start cooking outdoors”
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