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Lord Nityananda's Cooking Contest ki Jaya!

12 Noon, Seattle Airport, USA, March 1, 2002.
By Vipramukhya Swami

For me and many others, the highlight for the month of February this year was Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day in Vancouver, which was on February 25, 2002. This day has a long history for the Vancouver temple revolving around the world famous Lord Nityananda Cooking contest.

The story is that many years ago there used to be a cooking contest on Lord Nityananda's Appearance Day in Vancouver. It was very popular, but due to various problems it gradually fizzled out and was discontinued. In 1992 I became the regional secretary of Western Canada, and with the help of my Godbrother, Yoginatha Prabhu, we revived the cooking contest and addressed the problems that formerly led to its discontinuation.

That same year, 1992, Mr. Narendra Bhatt became fired up and donated a trophy to use for the cooking contest, and this trophy, in the shape of a big cup mounted on a wooden base, became known as the "Lord Shree Nityananda Nectar Cup Trophy."

Each year the overall winner of the cooking contest gets their name added to the base of the trophy.

The way it works is like this. The temple advertises for people to volunteer as judges for the cooking contest. To qualify as a judge, you have to be at least 16 years old and pay $25 Canadian. Typically there are 20-25 judges each year, and the income pays for the festival.

Anyone can enter the cooking contest. You don't have to be initiated or a brahmana, but you do have to follow the rules of cooking, which are clearly spelled out on sheets of paper and posters. The rules are, of course, no meat, fish, eggs or poultry, no onion or garlic, and no tasting of the preparation before it is offered to Lord Nityananda. Those who are twice initiated can have their preparation offered directly on the altar. Those who are not initiated can place their preparation on a table in front of the altar in the temple room.

Before each preparation is placed before the deities, it first has to be registered. There are different categories for the cooking contest, including savories, sweets, nectar drinks, rice, bread, condiments, large prep (for everyone), youth offering, non-Vedic (like pizza), etc. So you bring your preparation to the kitchen and Bhaktin Maude then asks you what category your preparation is in. You say, "It's a sweet," or "It's a nectar drink," and so on, and then she places your name on a sheet of paper for that category and issues you a number for your preparation which is then place on the container.

When the servers get around to serving, they go around and tell each of the judges, "This is sweet number 14," or "this is nectar drink number 8," and so on. The judges take a very small amount, because typically there can be about a hundred preparations.

In judging, they find the space on their score sheets for sweet number 14 or nectar drink number 8 or whatever, and then they "grade it" by giving it a score from 5 to 10. No scores under 5 are accepted to avoid the pitfall of finding fault with prasadam. 5 means "good" and 10 means you will go back to Godhead by eating this preparation, and everything in between.

Judges are not told who makes each preparation.

After the preparations are offered to the judges, it "overflows" to the general body of devotees. Because there are so many preparations, everyone gets wonderful prasadam, but nobody except the judges gets all the prasadam or the same prasadam.

So each judge tastes a small bite size of each preparation and gives it a mark between 5 and 10. Later someone adds up all the scores for each preparation, divides it by the number of judges that voted for that preparation, and arrives at an average score. Average scores typically have a lot of decimal numbers, like 7.345, so there are rarely if ever any exact ties.

In the end, each category has three winners, first place, second place and third place. And then there is one overall winner who is that person who gets the highest overall score. It is that person who gets their name on the honorable Nectar Cup Trophy.

This year was the 10 year anniversary of the revival of the cooking contest in 1992, and the eleventh name to go on the trophy. The winners of each category and the overall winner who gets their name on the trophy will be officially declared on Sunday, and unfortunately on Sunday I will be in England at Bhaktivedanta Manor.

Understanding that, Jaya Govinda Prabhu, the temple president, came to see me this morning to tell me the news. I won. It is the first time I ever managed to get my name on the Nectar Cup.

So, what did I make that became the overall winner of the Lord Nityananda Cooking Contest?

Well, I made a nectar drink, appropriately enough. But, of course, to win this contest with so many stalwart cooks entering the competition, I couldn't make just an "ordinary" nectar drink. I set out from the onset to make an exceptional nectar drink.

It began the night before. I reasoned that whatever I was going to make had to be simple so I could concentrate on making it nice. I thought it should be light, because the poor judges have to eat all that prasadam. That's a tough service for them. I thought my preparation should probably be a little sweet, but not classified as a sweet, because there are an awful lot of sweets to compete with. So I arrived at the idea of making a nectar drink to end all nectar drinks. I wanted to make a nectar drink that would exceed all other nectar drinks for the next 10,000 years.

I drew my inspiration from a preparation made at Bhaktivedanta Manor in England for the Patron Dinner evening every summer. I decided to make a "layered" nectar drink.

Because the nectar was to be layered and visually appealing, it was imperative to have it in clear plastic cups so that it could be seen as well as tasted.

In the bottom fifth of each cup I put a small layer of freshly cut pineapple chunks. On top of that I put a layer of thick, sweetened yogurt with a pinch of nutmeg and vanilla flavoring. It was important that the yogurt was thick, because I was going to poor cream soda on top of it, so I also thickened the yogurt with cornstarch.

Then I poured a layer of reddish-pink carbonated cream soda on top of that, and then I floated a scoop of peach ice-cream on top of that. On top of the ice-cream I put a layer of whipped cream, and then I topped the whole presentation with a green, candied cherry, pierced with a mint-flavored tooth pick.

I entered it as "Nectar drink number 2." I also entered two other nectar drinks, but it was number 2 that won the overall highest average of all the preparations for year 2002.

I had some stiff competition. I understand from Jaya Govinda that Isavasya Prabhu had entered an incredible rice preparation that scored only one or two hundredths of a point less than my Nectar Drink number 2.

The Lord Nityananda Cooking Contest is a wonderful festival where devotees come from around the world to glorify and cook for Lord Nityananda in Vancouver, Canada. In the words of my friend, Ram Agrawal, who was one of the judges this year, "It is better than the Winter Olympics, and the scoring is more honest, too."

My thanks to the devotees for allowing me to participate in this fun festival, and to the judges who gave my preparation such a high score. Especially my thanks goes to Lord Nityananda, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who allowed this insignificant soul to please him with my sincere effort to come up with the winning preparation.