The Alabama Cattlemen’s Association is encouraging young culinarians through an upcoming cookoff event. We caught up with Erin Beasley with the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association to learn more.
“Well, it’s a cook-off that the ACA and Alabama Cattlewomen’s Association are well known for and that is our junior and senior high school beef cook-off. We’ve been doing this event since the 60s and a long-standing event for us and a great way for us to showcase a lot of our young culinarians in the state. There’s students that qualify. They have gone through a county cook-off situation. They’ve been the first place out of that county and then they have qualified for our state beef cook-off and so each year we put that on and allow those kids to come in and showcase their beef items that they prepare while they’re with us. They also receive some great beef education and just look forward to highlighting these young people. It seems to get better year after year with the creations and just the abilities that they show with the influence that our culinary arts programs at the high school level have had,” said Beasley.
“It really puts these kids in a good position to be very competitive and so this program is sponsored by the state beef checkoff. Again it’s a partnership with the Alabama Cattlewomen’s Association and one that we look forward to each year and so you can check out highlights from that in the magazine upcoming this year. We’ll have all the details from the competition as well as the winners and also the delicious beef dishes that they are highlighting at this cook-off,” said Beasley.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.