The youth department of the Shiloh Apostolic Church at 138 ½ Church Street, Kingston, hosted their first grand cooking competition on Friday, May 29th. The young participants were divided into two groups “Faith” and “Hope”, to go head to head in the cook-off. The competition turned out to be extremely exciting as the teams set about preparing their dishes with one ingredient as a constant – callalo. Impressively, they arrived at some strange but tasty combinations. Callaloo pizza, callaloo soup, callaloo keish, callaloo fudge, Callaloo lasagne were some of the creations of the culinary face-off. The event was co-ordinated by 19-year-old Daniel Reid, who marveled at the success of the competition. He told teenAGE it was more than he expected as the support came not only from the members of Shiloh, but also the wider community.

The creativity that both teams displayed was impeccable; not only in the presentation of the many interesting callaloo dishes, but the entire presentation of each team’s booth. Everyone was hard at work, and it was even surprising to see 7-year-old Oshane Samuels and 9-year-old Kevin Scott chopping seasonings and assisting the older members of the team to complete the dishes for the cook-off. Judges were of course in attendance, and they all looked very pleased by the effort each team displayed in their quest to win the competition. The host and head judge of the event Sandra Martin; co-ordinator for the Pentecostal Gospel Temple Skills Training Centre told teenAGE that “the event was very good for the first time. The presentation of the dishes were unusual and extremely creative.”

Thirteen-year-old Brittania Henry also expressed her satisfaction of the event and told teenAGE that “being a part of this cook-off is kind of shocking, but I’m enjoying it so far”.  Alex Neil who was also one of the young persons at the event told us that he thinks the event was a success, and it was just extremely amazing to see how many dishes can be made from callaloo.

The night was filled with the atmosphere of camaraderie and enthusiasm as both teams tried very hard to be the best; so the teamwork was quite admirable. Notably, this is not the first time Shiloh has hosted an event of such nature, but this is the first youth-oriented cooking competition; so cheers to the co-ordinator, Daniel Reid. Reid was sure to mention to teenAGE that he is planning on making the event an annual venture because he wants to raise the standard as it regards to the children. He said he would love to get more children involved, which is what they all hope to accomplish that next year.