The Bakery World Cup

For many foodies, watching sports hardly ranks as a favorite weekend activity. Unless, of course, one counts the hours spent on the food network cheering competitive cooking shows like Iron Chef, Hells Kitchen and Top Chef.

After three long years of waiting, the Olympics are back. (No, not that Olympics.) The Bread Olympics, or the Coupe De Monde De Boulangerie, begins tomorrow in Paris. From March 29th until April 2nd, twelve international teams representing the worlds finest bakers will enter the heat of the battle at Europain to see who will bake the greatest breads in the world. In just eight hours, three team members from each of the 12 participating countries, must compete in four specific categories of baking:

Bread (baguette and specialty bread making), Viennese pastry (sweet, yeast risen pastries), Savory (sandwiches and savory rolls) and Artistic Presentation (artistic masterpieces based on country symbol). Organization, teamwork, degree of difficulty and team member competance will all be deciding factors in the judges’ voting.

The American Team, coached by bread maven and La Brea Bakery founder, Nancy Silverton, is this year’s gold medal defending champion. The American team, sponsored by the Bread Bakers Guild of America), consists of Chicagoan Peter Yuan, owner of La Patisserie P , Solveig Tofte, Baker/Chef of Turtle Bread Company in Chicago and Dara Reimers a baker and Pastry arts graduate of Notter School.

Go Team!