Ever wonder what eight amateur chefs can do with Spam? Tampa's Uka-Palooza plans to show crowds at the Florida State Fair just that.
Hosted at the Charles M. Davis Special Events Center during the fair, the inaugural ukulele festival has scheduled its Spam-Off for noon to 2:45 p.m. Feb. 9.
The cooking contest's contenders will receive an ingredient list beforehand, in addition to a description of their cooking station, which offers two hot plates, a tabletop oven and a shared refrigerator. They're tasked with using at least five of the list's featured ingredients — plus spam and one secret item of their choice that costs up to $5 — to create an original dish.
These are the ingredients they can choose from: Hawaiian rolls, oranges, Florida honey, instant white rice, ramen noodles, eggs, grated queso seco cheese, onions, celery and kale.
What's more, each cooking station is stocked with kitchen staples like coconut oil, salt, pepper, soy sauce and fresh cilantro.
Participants must send their recipe and their secret item and its cost (and where to find it) to tampabayukesociety@gmail.com in advance. When they arrive at the Spam-Off, their basket of ingredients will be waiting for them.
Throughout the contest, the chefs will whip up a dish — two at a time over four rounds — in 20 minutes. A panel of judges will then select the winner.
Uka-Palooza is looking for one more contender. Interested candidates should reach out to the aforementioned email address.
This article appears in Jan 24-31, 2019.