Millet Food Fest at CSIR-NIIST: Application for cooking contest called
Trivandrum / February 18, 2023
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 18: CSIR-NIIST,Pappanamcode, Thiruvananthapuram, invites entries for Millet recipe cooking competitions planned on the side-lines of the Millet Food Festival 2023 to be held here from March 13 to 18 as part of the International Year of Millets (IYM 2023).
The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations had declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets as proposed by India.
CSIR-National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (CSIR-NIIST), Thiruvananthapuram, a constituent laboratory of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt of India, has planned the festival to promote cultivation, value-addition and consumption of millets across the country.
The festival will feature millet food stalls, Farmers' meet, MSME meet, Recipe competition, millet familiarisation, Chef challenge, cultural programs, and B2B counters.
The deadline for receiving the application for the Recipe competition is February 26, 2023, before 5.30 pm.
Only 50 applications will be selected for the Recipe competition on a first-come-first basis. The selected applicants should bring their prepared dish for display before the jury on March 4, at 2pm. Only one dish per person will be allowed. A team led by culinary experts and chefs will evaluate the dish and select the best six for the final event.
The final event will be held on March 15 (2 to 5 pm) at the Millet Food Court set up at CSIR-NIIST (Industrial Estate, Pappanamcode). The selected six contestants from the preliminary screening held on March 4 should cook their dishes live and display them on the stage during the Millet Food Festival.
Millets should be the main ingredient of the dish prepared by the contestants in the cooking competitions and should be easy to prepare at home.
The following millets or their combination could be used for cooking: Pearl millet (Kambam/Bajra), Foxtail millet (Thina), Proso millet (Panivaraku), Finger millet (Panjapullu/Raggi), Kodo millet (Varagu), Barnyard millet (Kuthiravaali), Sorghum and Little millet (Chaama).
Based on the jury's decision, the best dishes will be awarded Rs 10,000 (first prize) and Rs 5,000 (second prize).
Interested applicants may send a WhatsApp message to Mob no: 8606135606 with the Applicant's name, age, address, and WhatsApp number; or Email their applications to milletfestival2023@gmail.com with the above information.
