Sgt. 1st Class Rene Marquis, team leader of the U.S. Army Culinary Arts Team, directs a teammate and inspects the food.

On June 19 in the McLaughlin Food Services Center on Fort Lee the U.S. Army Culinary Arts Team was practicing for the World Culinary Olympics.
In one of the kitchens chefs hurried to get everything done and to get it done in an orderly fashion. They scurried around the kitch-en doing their best to be on time.
"Keep go-ing!" Team Leader Sgt. 1st Class Rene Marquis told a teammate. "You can straighten them out later. Let's go!"
Marquis had good reason to encourage his teammate to hustle. At the World Culinary Olympics, which will be held from Oct. 19-22 in Erfurt, Germany, they will be up against the best chefs in the world, meaning there will be little room for error.
"This is our first practice," Marquis said. "We're working on getting the recipes perfect."
He further said this was how they found out how much food they needed, if the recipes worked and how long it took for the food to cook–all of which they will be judged on in October.
"They're going to compete against 10 to 15 military teams from around the world to see who has the best military chefs," said Chief Warrant Officer Robert Sparks, team manager. "They won the world title in 2000 and 1992. So we know how to do it."
The team will compete in two parts of the competition, a cold dish part and a hot dish part.
For the cold dish, they will fix 21 display plates, which will account for 35 percent of their score. For the hot dish portion they will prepare a three course meal for 150 people, which is what they were practicing for. It will account for 65 percent of their score.
Somebody might think cooking food is one of the least grueling activities. But for the cold dish portion they will be up for at least 24 hours. They will have to make the display plates look as good as possible. During a world class competition they won't be able to just throw something together.
On the first day of practice, they started preparing for the run-through at 6:30 a.m.
"I haven't gotten much sleep this week," said Staff Sgt. Josh Speiss as he hurried to prepare food in the kitchen.
Marquis said during competition things would be busier.
The hot dish portion will be a part of the "Restaurant of Nations" event. Teams taking a part in this will have to fix speciality foods from their native country. While the culinary team was hustling, patrons sat in the air-conditioned restaurant, and patiently waited for their three-course meal. The calm look on their faces seemed to indicate they were unaware of—or just unconcerned about—the hustle and bustle in the kitchen.
Waiters paced back and forth into the dining room, calmly refilling glasses of water, as if there was nothing to get anxious about.
To get the meal started patrons were served a bowl of clam chowder. For the main course, they served turkey breast, smoked country sausage, sweet potatoes, candied pecans and green beans wrapped in cured ham.
This might sound like a typical southern meal, but it was presented like something from a fancy restaurant in New York City. The portions were small, all the food was centered in the middle of the plate, and the food was carefully placed like a piece of art.
If the Culinary Team was worried about what recipes worked, then they probably found one to keep with the dessert. Several people were impressed with the chocolate mousse cake, which had a rich flavor to it.
Also, on each dessert plate was a picture of a fish, made out of chocolate, red currant sauce and apricot sauce.
"We practice and practice and practice to achieve perfection," Marquis said. "We can't do it, but we try to."

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