On your marks, set, go!
Last month, the stage was set for the ultimate cooking challenge. The 22nd Food Olympics, held in Berlin from 19th - 22nd October, hosted teams from 53 nations who battled it out to win points in several categories, to see which nations really excelled in their culinary style.

Cooking on show
The Olympics was held in conjunction with the INOGA hospitality trade fair at Messe Erfurt in Berlin and attracted crowds from within Germany and further afield, to help in judging each country's offering. Cooking under pressure is the name of the game, as each team must cook their dish infront of a live audience in the large auditorium.

Kazuya Fukuhira of the Japanese National Team said during the show: "We've been practising really hard, so I think we'll make it to the finals."

Multiple Categories
Countries were able to enter their dishes into several different categories, which included National Senior/Junior, Military and Regional categories. The big winners of the four day event were Norway, who scooped the first prize for the National Senior category, and were closely followed by Germany, Sweden and Singapore. In the National Junior category, Germany came top, followed by Switzerland, Sweden and the USA.

Learning Opportunity
Elsewhere in the trade fair, seminars were given by top European chefs on cooking style, others gave introductory seminars on topics such as Traditional Chinese Nutrition Science, Food Allergies and the question of whether diabetes is really caused by poor diet.

The Food Olympics are held every four years in Berlin, so make sure to catch the next wave in 2012 when they will be making their next appearance!