Old Colony RVTHS hosted its first ever Mystery Basket cooking competition on January 30, 2008, in Rochester, MA. Old Colony had participated in these competitions before, but this was its first time being a host school.

Chef Fran Zentgraf, of JP Keefe Technical School in Framingham, began these competitions 8 years ago as a teaching tool for young chefs. The goal of these competitions is to compete in a non-threatening environment and begin to experience some of the industry standards for competitions in a pleasant way. This competition was designed to utilize industry chefs as mentors for high school culinary students and bridge the gap between young culinarians and the professionals in the food service industry.

A mystery basket competition is intended as challenge for cooks and chefs to show their ability to produce quality food products under various conditions. The term “basket” refers to the basket that holds the food that the cooks and chefs are to use. The term “mystery” refers to the food itself. Cooks and chefs do not know which raw food products would be in their basket. Mystery basket rules differ from competition to competition. Teams consisted of 4 students each from Old Colony, JP Keefe Tech, Cape Cod Tech, and Tri-County. Students were then combined into 4 member teams with a member from each school. Students also learn to deal with working in unfamiliar surroundings with unfamiliar coworkers.

The results were as follows:

1st Place Gold Medallions Samantha Lucas, Old Colony Eric Fenner, Cape Cod Tech Angel Rivera, JP Keefe Tech Ali White, Tri-County 2nd Place Silver Medallions Dana Collins, Old Colony Doug Holmes, Cape Cod Tech Donald Lyons, JP Keefe Tech Honey Koch, Tri-County

3rd Place Bronze Medallists William DeCosta, Old Colony Alyssa Jones, Cape Cod Tech Gloria Price, JP Keefe Tech Mike Pothier, Tri-County 4th Place Chef’s Award Cameron DeGrazia, Old Colony Chelsea Young, Cape Cod Tech Tom Gibson, JP Keefe Tech Azinga Ming, Tri-County