Kendall College School of Culinary Arts students won the 2010 ACF National Baron H. Galand Culinary Knowledge Bowl at the American Culinary Federation’s (ACF) National Convention in Anaheim, California on August 2. The winning team consisted of Allison Chikos, Erika Giffin, Sarah Roberts, Jacquie Wallner and Edward Whitney. Coached by Chef Instructor Dina Altieri, C.E.C, C.C.E., this team represents the best of what Kendall is all about–working hard and achieving excellence.

The team advanced to the national competition after being named the Central Regional Champion team at the ACF 2010 Central Regional Conference in Indianapolis on March 26, where they beat 11 other teams.

To take the national title in Anaheim and win their gold medals, the team had to earn the most points for correctly answering “Jeopardy”-style culinary questions in a round-robin challenge, beating finalist teams from California, Florida and Pennsylvania. This is a tremendous achievement as Kendall has never even had a team compete in the Knowledge Bowl competition, let alone win both the regional and national titles!

The Baron H. Galand Culinary Knowledge Bowl tests the acumen of culinary-arts students via a “Jeopardy”-style subjects grid that includes challenging culinary, baking, nutrition, sanitation and math questions as well as sensory perception. The competition is named after the late Chef Baron H. Galand, CEC, who served as national president of ACF from 1983 to 1987. First held at the ACF’s 1992 National Convention in Washington, D.C., today the four geographic regions of ACF hold the competition at their respective conferences in winter and spring to qualify teams to compete for the national title at the ACF’s convention in summer.