On Wednesday, October 19th, 2022, students in the Culinary Arts class at Karns High school hosted the first-ever Iron Chef competition at the school. The chefs were given an hour to create an entree and had to either make a dessert, an appetizer, or both. Like the show, The Iron Chef, the chefs were given a “secret ingredient” that they had to incorporate into their dishes. The secret ingredient this time was an MRE also known as a Meal ready-to-eat. These meals were created for someone in harsh training. An example of this is the military, the military also uses these on operations when average food is not available. 

The chefs in Jake Neb’s 3rd period were split into two groups, each group was given MRE.

    “…Basically, they rip it open and dump it out like a sac of Halloween candy and they look at whatever is inside there and that’s what they have to cook with and then they have other ingredients they can use…,” said Neb. 

The students in Group A prepared a classic Hispanic dish that consisted of Mangonada, and sopes, and the dessert was churro chips with peanut brittle. They used 4 of the secret ingredients. Group B prepared a dish that consisted of Fried pickles, chicken sliders, coleslaw, a french toast dessert and a drink. They used 5 of the secret ingredients.

“It’s like heaven in my mouth,” said Mr Robinson, a math teacher.

The competition was judged into 4 different categories: taste, creativity/inspiration, appearance, and clean-up. Points could be lost if the blender or grater is not immediately cleaned and returned to their location (-5 pts), or if there were any health hazards observed (-2 pts). However, the team would gain points for the amount of MBI used (+1 pts). Group A ended up being the winning team. 

“It was the time of my life,” said Reecey Grubbs, a senior at Karns high school who watched Group A win. 

The winning team will have their names engraved on a metal plaque.