4-H Cookery contest set for October 9

The 19th Annual 4-H Beef, Seafood and Sugar Cookery Contests will be held on Wednesday, October 9. Contest sponsors are the Louisiana Cotton Festival, Evangeline Parish Cattleman’s Association, Mikey’s Donuts and the Evangeline Parish Cooperative Extension Service.

The cookery contests will be held in the Ville Platte Civic Center with entries being accepted after school from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. All Evangeline Parish 4-H members, regardless of projects selected are eligible to participate. 4-H’ers may enter one dish in each category.

Contestants must submit a copy of the entire contest recipe written in correct form. A new requirement this year is to only exhibit half the dish in a throw-away container. Dishes must be brought to the Civic Center ready for judging, as no cooking will be allowed at the contest site and the dish must be cold when it is registered. Garnishes or anything used to enhance the appearance of the dish must be in or on the serving container. No place mats, flowers, table arrangements, figurines, etc. can be used.

The Ground Beef Contest requires the use of a minimum of one pound of ground beef. The categories in the Beef contest are: Low-Calorie Main Dish, Quick and Easy Main Dish and One Dish Meal.

In the Seafood Cookery contest, the contest categories are: Crab, Shrimp, Oyster, Crawfish and Fish or Other Seafood. Each dish must use a minimum of one cup of fresh, frozen, pasteurized or dried seafood. Canned seafood and artificial seafood can not be used. All seafood used must be on the Louisiana seafood list which was included in the handout given to all 4-H’ers at the September 4-H Club meeting. The list is also available from the 4-H office and can be found on the parish website www.lsuagcenter.com.

In the Sugar Cookery contest, the categories are: Baked and Non-Baked. The exhibited dish must contain at least one cup of sugar. The dish must not have raw eggs in the final product. And, no part of the dessert in the non-baked category can be baked.

All entries will receive either a blue, red, or white ribbon. The parish winner in each sugar, seafood and beef category will represent Evangeline Parish in the area competition, which will be held in Crowley in April of 2014. 

For additional information, contact Tina Guillory, Extension Agent/4-H Youth Development at the Evangeline Parish Cooperative Extension Office, which is located at 230 Court Street in Ville Platte or call 363-5646.