Great Southern Grammar Year 10 class wins national McCormick Flavour Forecast 2024 Recipe Challenge

A Great Southern Grammar hospitality class have been commended by Australia’s peak body for home economics after winning both the State and national prizes for their innovative recipes.

The GSG Year 10 class won the top gong in the McCormick Flavour Forecast 2024 Recipe Challenge, beating hundreds of other schools in the cooking and recipe creation competition run by the Home Economics Institute of Australia.

The 15 students showed off their creative flair in their trio of dishes, which they created to fit the budget, flavour and time constraints in each of the three categories.

A combined ruby sour drink and Kendenup yabbie ceviche were entered in the “sour power” category, using yabbies from a student’s dam and a careful balance of tamarind.

The “thoughtfully borrowed” brief asked students to use flavours from a different culture, to which they responded with a Filipino-inspired dish of Menang pork skewers, with banana ketchup, ube/lillypilly dipping sauce, and bloodroot, served in a coconut.

A breakfast board titled South Coast Surprise was entered in the “indulgence, redefined” category, with the colourful offering including pancakes and caramelised carrots covered in a purple rice paper dome that had to be cracked open.

Fifteen-year-old Charlie Hill said though the design brief was “challenging”, it made the students think “outside of the box”.

“It was amazing to work together with everyone in the class to design unique dishes,” he said.

“I was ecstatic to learn that we’d won the National award for all of our hard work.”

Great Southern Grammar head of technology Teresa McAllister said she “couldn’t be prouder” of her students.

“Each one played an integral role in developing recipes to meet the three design briefs of the Flavour Forecast Challenge, from research and flavour pairings to recipe trials, tastings, costing, writing justifications and reflections, food styling, and food photography,” she said.

“Their collaboration was remarkable, working seamlessly as a cohesive group.

“I was especially impressed with their choice to use local and unique Indigenous ingredients.

“Their dedication and teamwork have truly paid off with this national award win.”

As a part of their win, the school will receive a $1000 gift voucher for Chef’s Hat, a $1000 gift voucher for Tupperware, $500 worth of McCormick herbs and spices, and a one-year school membership of HEIA for up to six teachers.

The students will share a $500 gift card among themselves.