Yesterday I had a fantastic afternoon judging the Noordhoek Farm Village Potjie competition along with Bern Le Roux (owner of Cafe Roux and fellow food blogger), and Mark Sampson (comedian and general nice guy).
It was the perfect event to celebrate Heritage Day otherwise known as Braai Day, where 7 independent teams took on the 3 Noordhoek Farm Village restaurants.
The competition was stiff with a diverse array of potjies in the running. There was everything from chicken, mussels, springbok, lamb, goat and beef to mopani worms. It wasn’t easy picking out the winner. All the teams went to so much effort to create exciting and original dishes.
Gin & tonics were offered and some ‘schmoozing’ of the judges, but there can only be one winner. We eventually settled on the goat potjie from The Toad, based on the uniqueness of the main ingredient and delicious flavour.
7 Comments
Hi Sam. What a fun day. Your pictures definitely capture the event. And great to finally meet you! Bern
Thanks Bern, it was a fun day and lovely to meet you at last. S
Looks like such a fab day!
Thanks Sam for being a judge at the Village! Was fabulous to have you and Bern and Mark as judges (don’t think any of us could have made the decision) All the potjies were SOOOO good!
We hold n annual potjie competition for our community every year and have alway had 8-10 pots. since its becoming more popular we are having troule with the judging of th ompetition. What is the best way to judge this type of competition when there is 30-40 pots on the day.
We used to have a score sheet and three judges, but by the 10th pot they are full, then we changed it and gave each person that participated a score sheet so everyone judged everone elses pot, ut various poeple complained saying that people came too early and gave them bad scores for whatever reason.
What can we do… the competition is a very important fundraiser for us and we need to get the judging done and make everyone happy.
Hi Crystal. I definitely don’t think you can have the competitors judging each other. You need to get a panel of judges – who have to eat very little at each stand. Alternatively, you group the competitors into sub groups, Judge the sup groups with each winner going through to the final. Have a final round with fewer people and the judges are likely to be more focused. This way you eliminate those that are outright not that good.