I’ve got so much admiration for those guys. Some of the conditions they face out there are just incredible. They can be out for hours or days at a time for not a lot of pay.”
‘Fishy Feast’ is also a good opportunity for young chefs looking to enter the industry. Russell Bateman, Matt Gillan, Phil Thompson, Mark Poynton, Steve Smith and Adam Simmonds are all set to cook for the occasion.
Chris said: “We’re also working with Murray Chapman’s ‘passion to inspire’. He works with catering colleges, getting lecturers and students working with industry experts. At the pork feast we had four catering colleges with multiple students working together with Mark Poynton. I had 25 people in my kitchen at one point. It’s a fantastic learning experience for them and hopefully this year we’ll have six different colleges working with the top chefs in the line-up.”
Chris is the catering manager of Corpus Christi College at Cambridge University. He talked us through his day-to-day job and how the experience of catering for large numbers will help at such a charity event.
“Our main priorities are feeding the students, fellows and the staff, offering a cafeteria lunch service which is almost like the traditional Sunday dinner. We do about 250 covers for lunch so we know what we’re doing with large numbers,” Chris said. “Everybody gets good quality home-cooked food. All our feasts and everything extra that we do is a bit of fun. Our most important role is the cafeteria food for the students, fellows and staff of the college.”
“It’ll be a brilliant event. The Pork Feast was great and we’ve learnt from that so we’ll try to make this one even better.”
By Tom Evans
