Meet the 2023 winner of the Health Care Culinary Contest: Chef Michael Millben from Mayo Clinic. Check out his winning recipe and hear why he thinks chefs should compete.
Entering the contest is easy! Submit a recipe anytime between Oct. 1 and Nov. 30, 2024. Please refer to the official rules and resources for participants for more details.
Rules:
- The entry must be plant-forward, a style of cooking and eating that emphasizes and celebrates, but is not limited to, foods from plant sources – fruits and vegetables (produce), whole grains, legumes (pulses), nuts and seeds, plant oils, and herbs and spices – and reflects evidence-based principles of health and sustainability. For this contest, animal proteins make up no more than 1.5 ounces per serving.
- The entry must be replicable for other hospitals.
- The entry must contain at least one whole food plant protein (e.g., grains, legumes, seeds, or tree nuts). Traditional foods such as tofu, seitan, and tempeh qualify but meat/dairy analogs do not.
- The entry must be served in your facility at least once in the contest period.
- The entry must be submitted between Oct. 1 and Nov. 30.
- The entry must be submitted by an individual who works in a hospital or health care system.
How to play:
The recipe can be for an entree, snack, grab-n-go, baked good, or any common food item sold in your cafés and cafeterias including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. For example, a black bean brownie or a chickpea muffin would qualify as a plant-forward baked good. Your dish might be a new take on a traditional dish. Perhaps a classic meatloaf is transformed into a savory, plant-forward loaf. A beefy bolognese could become a rich, plant-forward sauce. One might also look to classic comfort foods from other cultures like China’s congee or shakshuka from the Middle East, or get inspired by what’s in season in your region.
Step #1 Submit the recipe
- The recipe can be for an entree, snack, grab-n-go, baked good, or any common food item sold in your cafés and cafeterias including breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Recipe narrative. Tell us about the recipe. Use these questions for narrative ideas.
- What is the cost per serving?
- Recipe ingredients and procedure in institutional proportions (20-50 servings) and home proportions (6 servings).
- Submit at least two photos, one of the dish/item and one with the chef or culinary team with the dish/item. (High-quality photos with landscape orientation preferred.)
Step #2 Promote the dish
Promote your dish by holding an event, tasting, demonstration, or other promotion during the contest period. (The week of World Food Day, Oct. 16, would be a great time for this.) Document the promotion with 2-3 images (such as screenshots of social media posts, photos, or marketing materials) and a description of the promotion in the contest entry form. Our participant social media guide includes sample posts and images you may use.
Prizes
One (1) grand prize winner will receive:
- One complimentary registration and acknowledgment at the 2025 Menus of Change Summit hosted by the Culinary Institute of America.
- One complimentary registration and acknowledgment at the 2025 CleanMed conference hosted by Health Care Without Harm and Practice Greenhealth.
- One travel stipend of $1,400 to be used for costs associated with attending either of the conferences.
- $100 gift certificate to a local farm-to-table restaurant.
- Promotion by the Culinary Institute of America, Health Care Without Harm, and Practice Greenhealth.
Four (4) finalists will receive a $100 gift certificate to a local farm-to-table restaurant.
Scoring and selection process
Entries are scored by Health Care Without Harm staff to determine a top 7. Menus of Change staff score the top 7 entries to establish a top 5. The top 5 recipes will be tested by the Johnson and Wales University Culinary School instructors and students. The top 5 finalists will be notified by email by March 2025. The winner will be notified by April 2025 and will be publicly announced at CleanMed in May 2025. Entries will be scored, and points will be awarded in the following categories:
- Narrative (10 points)
- Recipe submission (5 points)
- Recipe novelty, creativity, taste, suitability for health care (10 points)
- Promotion (10 points)
Recipe narrative
The recipe narrative can earn you up to 10 points and is scored based on the quality of your answer. It gets at the “heart and soul” of your recipe, and is an opportunity to explain why it is meaningful to you, the community you serve, and/or your facility. The narrative might also describe your creative experience in putting flavors and textures together to create something delicious. The following questions can be used to guide your narrative but each question does not need to be addressed.
- Why did you choose this dish?
- What does it mean to you?
- What does it mean to the community you serve?
- Does the dish reflect your cultural history or the cultural history of your community?
- Does the dish reflect the current growing season?
- Does the dish celebrate what farmers in your region are growing?
- How does it fit into the goals of your organization?
- Are any ingredients locally sourced? Tell us about the farm or producer.
- Does the dish contain sustainably produced ingredients? If so, what are these ingredients and how were they produced?
- Why did you combine the ingredients in the way that you did?
- What was your inspiration for the dish?
- Does the entry utilize root-to-stem cooking or other culinary strategies to reduce food waste?
What makes a good narrative?
A good narrative tells a compelling story about your recipe. It gives the judges a sense of your creative process and what inspired you to create the dish. We love to see recipes that highlight the local community, that help eaters make a transition to new foods, and that utilize locally and sustainably produced ingredients.