Calling all ICC bread bakers—the Tiptree World Bread Awards are coming to New York City this Fall. For the first time, America’s great bread bakers will have the opportunity to enter their breads to compete and stake their claim alongside some of the best breads in the world. We spoke with Caroline Kenyon, Founder/Director of Tiptree World Bread Awards with Food is GREAT, to learn about how the idea to bring the UK based award to the US came to be.
Looking to enter? You have until September 30 to register your entries for the Tiptree World Bread Awards. Click here for full rules of entry and how to register.
Written by Caroline Kenyon, Founder/Director of Tiptree World Bread Awards with Food is GREAT
We sat down in the warm summer’s evening at a small neighborhood restaurant in Park Slope, Brooklyn, two summers ago.
My brother, son Henry and I had come over from London for a family wedding in Brooklyn and we had just arrived. Henry spotted the restaurant from the taxi as we came from the airport and thought it looked very inviting, so we dropped our bags off where we were staying and walked back.
It seemed a long way, I was tired, and kept saying, “Can’t we find somewhere else that’s a bit nearer?” Henry kept driving us on. “No,” he said, “it looks really nice, keep going.”
The waitress brought us some focaccia and olive oil to keep us going while we chose from the menu. I put some bread in my mouth and it was SO delicious it nearly blew the top of my head off. The pleasure bits of my brain were in ecstasy.
When the waitress came back, I asked her where she got her bread from. “Oh,” she replied, “we make it in the restaurant every night.”
That was the moment the idea was born, to bring our British bread awards to America to celebrate your amazing bread.
So we are incredibly excited to be bringing the Tiptree World Bread Awards with Food is GREAT to America. For year 1, we have 13 categories, from baguette to bagel, and focaccia to flatbread.
Our fabulous panel of judges includes, to our great pleasure, ICC’s very own Chef Jansen Chan, Director of Pastry Operations, also Dana Cowin, for 20 years Editor of Food & Wine, and Zachary Golper, James Beard Foundation winner, of Bien Cuit bakery.
And our brilliant headline sponsor is Tiptree, jam makers in the English countryside for nearly 150 years and supplier to Her Majesty the Queen. Our supporting sponsor is Food is GREAT, a UK government campaign to promote the best of British produce.
If you’d like to enter, all you need to do now is register your entries here, and then send us your loaves in October for the Judging Day in NYC.
And we can’t wait to meet all the Finalists at our Awards Evening in November!
This blog post was originally published by the International Culinary Center (ICC), founded as The French Culinary Institute (FCI). In 2020, ICE and ICC came together on one strong and dynamic national platform at ICE's campuses in New York City and Los Angeles. Explore your culinary education where the legacy lives on.
