Flavors of Kentucky

Brigitte Nguyen of Lexington will now be known as the person who won the last National Chicken Cooking Contest.
After 48 competitions over 60 years, the contest has been suspended. In a press release, NCC President George Watts said the contest “has been one of the country’s premiere competitive cooking events, but the economic realities facing our industry required us to take a hard look at all our programs, and unfortunately the contest has been suspended.”
The National Chicken Cooking Contest traces its origin to a cookoff held in connection with the Delmarva Poultry Festival in 1949. The contest was held every year under the sponsorship of Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc., and grew over the years until it was taken over by the National Chicken Council in 1971. The U.S. Poultry & Egg Association has also been a co-sponsor of the event. The contest went from an annual to biennial schedule in 1983.
For many years, the contest culminated in a National Cook-Off in which contestants representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia cooked their dishes at individual mini-kitchens in a convention hall, with a grand prize that went as high as $100,000 from 2003 to 2007. The event rotated among cities in major chicken-producing states. The last cook-off, held in San Antonio, Texas, on May 2, adopted a regional format in which nine contestants from specified regions of the country competed.
At the last competition, Nguyen won $50,000 for her Chinese chicken burgers with rainbow sesame slaw. Her recipe and others from the 48th contest and previous contests remain available at the web site www.chickencookingcontest.com.