Chicam winner of an inter-hospital cooking competition

Collective catering does not have a good press. And food in hospitals even less so. However, teams of real cooks prepare it.

Getting to know cooks

Sardar Hamafarage, head of the kitchens at the Sées Hospital Center, and organizer of this evening on Friday June 21, 2024, in Alençon, explained the project of this concours. “I am a cooking trainer myself. The teams of the different hospital centers of the GHT do not know each other, and often within each hospital center, the kitchen staff, estimated at around fifty people in Orne, are isolated from the rest of the establishment where they work. Such an evening allows you to get to know each other better. »

Thus, the Alençon-Mamers intercommunal hospital center (Chicam), the Orne psychotherapeutic center (CPO) and the hospitals of Sées, l’Aigle and Mortagne-au-Perche were each made up of a chef and a cook . At the end of the event, the Chicam duo was named winner ahead of the Sées duo. Their menu will be served at the start of the school year to staff, patients and residents of GHT establishments. The menu includes a starter of Alençon pancake chips, Normandy Camembert cream, cider caramel, apples, also available in a verrine, then baby potatoes stuffed with protected designation of origin (PDO) butter with snails and mussels, logically available pureed for the dish. And finally for dessert, Tourgoule will be present with a milk semolina with cinnamon and salted butter caramel in the style of crème brûlée flambéed with Cointreau.

With David Gallienne as godfather

The initiative for this first at the national level, in a France which has 137 hospital centers, comes from Christophe Mazin, the director of Chicam. The manager spoke with David Gallienne, chef from Alençon, former member of the restaurant L’Alezan, and winner of the television culinary show Top Chef in 2020.

Absent on June 21, David Gallienne helped the five teams to develop their menus in the CPO kitchens on Wednesday June 12. Each team had to meet the same specifications: local, seasonal products, and in two textures, normal (“crunchy” taste) and adapted to certain patients and residents (“crushed”, often in the form of a glass), all within an acceptable budget range.

Beautiful and good non-exclusive departure gift

Christophe Mazin, who announced his departure from Chicam after two years of intense activity, thanked Joaquim Pueyo, mayor of Alençon, for his support, present at the start of the evening before moving on to the Music Festival.

The brass band Les Armoires normandes also came to liven up the evening, between the tasting of desserts and the announcement of the competition results by Eva Gâtel, head of communications at Chicam.

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