hours is what it took for five Bermuda College hotel technology graduates to bring home a silver medal from the prestigious Taste of Canada competition, recently held in Toronto, Ontario.

Hosted and organised by George Brown College's School of Hospitality, the culinary event attracted 29 teams from 25 countries.

Claimed to be the world's only international culinary competition for student and apprentice chefs and pastry chefs, Taste of Canada is designed to help participants display their talents and further their educational experience.

Team Bermuda -- Christopher Malpas, Pansy Nichols, Jasmine Saltus, Berchele Richardson and Kayte Gregory -- was led by Bermuda College chef lecturer Mr.

Fred Ming as manager, and chef instructor Wolfgang Hauschild as coach.

Together, the group spent months preparing for a tilt at the medals in the two-part competition: hot food and hot food served cold.

In both divisions, competitors were required to prepare absolutely everything from scratch and within a strictly enforced time frame. The challenges would be in hors d'oeuvres , entrees and desserts, and in the case of the hot food section, they would be given a "mystery box'' of ingredients at the last moment from which dishes had to be devised in 31 hours, submitted to judges for approval, and subsequently prepared.

The Bermuda College graduates' success began back home at the Stonington campus, where months of rehearsal and preparation enhanced their training skills.

Teamwork was an essential element of success -- a point constantly driven home by Mr. Ming and Mr. Hauschild.

"It was a team effort from the beginning,'' Mr. Ming stressed. "I told them that in order to be successful they had to work together as a team, that everybody depended on one another.'' Meticulous planning was vital. Not only did Team Bermuda have to take with them everything they needed in the way of tools and display elements, but they also had to plan every phase of their work down to the finest detail: ingredients, who did what, preparation times and final presentation.

Unlike the hot food section, with its mystery ingredients, competitors were given an outline of the other section before they left Bermuda, so they were able to plan the dishes and rehearse them ahead of time.

"For the cold dishes we created our own recipes here and requisitioned the products we would need in Canada,'' Mr. Ming explained. "Our budget was $150 per team member.'' So finite was the overall planning for this expedition that eggs were sub-divided between contestants -- who needed yolks and who needed whites for their respective recipes.

Even the display dishes were carefully chosen to complement the food and transported from Bermuda.

And of course, whatever was taken out of the Island and brought back had to be cleared with local Customs, which meant a lot of painstaking paperwork.

Once in Canada, the local competitors knew they would have no contact with their coach or manager on the day of preparation, so they made the most of the time beforehand once the contents of their "mystery box'' were revealed.

Everyone sat down together and planned on a blackboard exactly what they were going to do, and who would use what ingredients. Details even included plate diagrams showing how and where the food would finally be placed.

Work charts were created and tacked around the preparation area walls. So efficient did this system prove that the judges never had to ask the Bermuda competitors any questions while work was in progress.

"They could come in at any time and know exactly what we were doing and at what stage we were at,'' Ms Saltus said.

Team Bermuda began its competitive bid by leaving the hotel at 5 a.m.

Working non-stop throughout the day and night, they would not return -- or get any sleep -- until 26 hours later.

Understandably keyed up and with the clock ticking away, they kept their cool, ably guided by Christopher Malpas, a veteran of a previous Taste of Canada competition.

"Working together and working independently is part of their training, so that when they go out into the real world they are able to work with a minimum of supervision,'' is how Mr. Ming explained their ability to perform well.

Of course, like an anxious parent, he admitted to sweating it out as he wondered how his charges were doing.

"I felt they were like little ponies let out into a corral and I couldn't get to them. They were really left on their own,'' he smiled.

But of course Mr. Ming found plenty to do in the interim. While his team worked away, he went down to the O'Keefe Centre, where the finished products would be trucked, to measure and plan precisely how they would be displayed.

He made risers, bought velvet, and more, and then drew a diagram of the final table plan so that each competitor would know precisely where to put their creations.

He needn't have worried. Team Bermuda's rapport as they worked was a real morale-booster and kept them safely on track.

In the end it was good enough to win them a silver medal for their entries in the hot food competition: Chicken broth Springtime (a clear soup containing a roulade of cabbage leaves and chicken farce, fiddleheads and finely diced tomatoes to make a colourful splash), Trio for One (quenelles containing variations of fresh salmon served with fresh black pepper pasta and vegetables Parisienne), and a dessert of deep fried choux buns filled with marinated pineapple in an anglais sauce with blackberry border.

Pleased with their success, the team noted that, unlike some countries whose entrants were in Canada as the result of internal competitions, they had (with the exception of Mr. Malpas) no prior experience of competitions. While the College had generously allowed time out from the regular curriculum to prepare, some other countries had been preparing all year just for this event and also competing elsewhere.

The graduates acknowledged that, having the experience of working in the Stonington Hotel as part of their training programme proved a distinct advantage, but they said much of the credit went to their instructors.

"Overall, the whole experience was very worthwhile. Mr. Ming and Mr.

Hauschild's moral support and guidance helped us a lot,'' Ms Saltus said.

As to what they gained from the venture, perhaps Miss Gregory summed it up best.

"I learned a lot. You learn so much from other people -- techniques, styles, work habits, etiquette, everything. It was a challenge, and one I am glad I didn't miss. I was very honoured to represent Bermuda.'' As to why the local effort went so well, Mr. Hauschild said it was all down to planning and organisation.

"Fred's organisational talents and expertise made the trip twice as enjoyable. He is a master of organisation. You couldn't even think as fast as he did things. Without him I would have been lost. It was his efforts as manager which made it what it was.'' Mr. Hauschild was also grateful to the Bermuda College for its support. "The College really put a great deal into making us ready for the competition. They didn't spare the means, the time or the cost in order to bring us to that point, and we are very thankful.

"Without preparedness you cannot go into a competition like that. With dedication, hard work, interest and involvement the sky is the limit for young people.'' Noting that team members were at the threshold of their careers, Mr. Ming said he hoped the Taste of Canada exercise would enable them to "better themselves in terms of becoming more skillful and better craftsmen''.

"This is just an example of the teaching that they get at Bermuda College,'' he said. "These students will be good ambassadors.''s THE SILVER LINING to years of hotel technology training at the Bermuda College is summed up in the medals proudly displayed by (second left to second right) Berchele Richardson, Pansy Nichols, Jasmine Saltus and Kayte Gregory, who competed as Team Bermuda in the recent Taste of Canada international competition for student and apprentice chefs and pastry chefs. Accompanying the team were chef instructor Mr. Wolfgang Hauschild (left) and chef lecturer Mr. Fred Ming (right).