“The more things change, the more things stay the same.”

While thumbing through this tattered, spiral-bound copy of a 35 year-old recipe contesting book, I couldn’t help but think of this old saying.  Many of the cooking contest tips and hints inside these pages still hold true today.  Of course, there are dated cultural references and this was written in the days before the internet.  However, I was so intrigued by the timelessness of the subject matter, I wanted to share excerpts with all of you.

The book is Discover Contest Cooking by Jean Sanderson.  There isn’t a copyright date in the book, but based on the recipes included, my best guess is that it was published around 1979.  (She also wrote “The Million Dollar Contest Cookbook” which was published in 1983.)

Over the next four weeks I will post an article from the book every Tuesday.  Come back each week for more tips and tricks to enter and win recipe contests!

High Stakes, the Easy Way

It’s 7 a.m.  As you slowly rise and make your way to the kitchen.  Breakfast begins – usually served in shifts to a family on the move.

By 9 a.m. you’ve completed breakfast.   But around noon, just a few hours after the early shift ends, you’re in the kitchen again.  This time it’s lunch.

Before you know it, it’s 4 p.m., and you’re thinking in terms of dinner.  You begin to prepare a meal to satisfy a hungry family around 6:30 p.m.

Think about it.  You spend a good part of the day in that kitchen.  You do it not because you have to so much as you enjoy cooking for people who like to eat.  And you’ve become pretty good at it too.

So for about five hours today you lived in the room that somehow has become the center of family life – the kitchen.

When you were not in the kitchen you may have gone shopping for groceries.   Did you read the local specials in the morning paper?  Clip coupons perhaps?   Stop at the store’s reduced shelves hunting for a bargain?

If this is frequently the structure of your day, you probably don’t realize how close you are to being in the money.  You can turn the job of cooking into a contest-winning atet and ale your own brand of kitchen ingenuity profitable.

You can participate (expenses paid) in recipe contests of all sorts across the country.  That’s right.  You, with all your daily kitchen experiences and your well-honed shopping sense, have all the ingredients for participating in these cooking contest and winning  – winning money, prizes, awards and recognition.

Welcome to the world of contest cooking.  This is where common sense and basic cooking skills, both of which you use daily, can lead you down the road to opportunity.

Thousands and thousands of dollars in cash and prizes are awarded to cooks much like you every year.  The contests are held to promote the grocery products you buy weekly and probably use daily.

So you aren’t a gourmet cook.  Don’t worry, a Julia Child or James Beard isn’t required here.  Only a sensible cook who can use his or her already well-tuned knowledge to make a dent in the cooking prize market.  And that is very likely a description that fits you.

I know because I have won an array of cooking contests without any extraordinary talent, other than a desire to win and a love of cooking.

There are not just a few cooking contests to be won.  There are many.  Some are annual and others are announced from month to month.  Magazines (Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Bon Appetit, etc.) are some of the best sources of cooking contest news.  Newspaper food sections are also a good way to keep track of what contests are going on and when.

It’s important that you begin collecting recipe ideas for annual contests now, and continue all year round.  That way you can experiment with them and perfect them well before the entry deadline.

Search cookbooks in your own collection, in your neighbors’ homes and the public library.  Excellent sources for recipes are the brochures, leaflets and advertising materials of product manufacturers – many of which can be found on supermarket shelves and advertising displays.

Of course, contest cooking is quickly becoming a national sport of sorts.  It’s popularity is evident everywhere – the media, bridge club, the family reunion.

And would it be popular unless it was something almost anyone could do and enjoy?  No.

You still don’t believe you can do it?  I assumed you wouldn’t.  In the following pages you will find all you need to know to win bin in any of a number cooking contests going on in this country.  And you’ll also find a collection of winning recipes to enjoy now.

If you aren’t already a member of Cooking Contest Central, what are you waiting for?  Subscribe today!

https://cookingcontestcentral.com/become-a-member/