Local Chef Competes in Buy Local Cookout Competition

Chef Bryan Davis of The Classic Catering People in Owings Mills knew he wanted to enter a barbecue chicken dish into Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Buy Local Cookout competition. The special sauce he created for the dish, however, happened by chance.

“I knew I wanted to make a barbecue sauce, but I wanted to make something sweeter,” the Catonsville resident said. “I was playing with some cherries and threw them in the barbecue sauce, and that’s how it all came about.”

The result, brined cherry BBQ chicken, earned Davis a spot among 17 Maryland chefs selected to compete in the fourth-annual Buy Local Cookout competition in Annapolis on July 21.

Teams composed of one Maryland chef and at least one farmer, waterman or producer were invited to submit recipes featuring locally grown or harvested ingredients. Davis and his competition partner, Lynne Ferguson of Ferguson Family Farm in Parkton, will compete against other entrants in the entrée category.

The competition kicks off the state’s annual Buy Local Challenge week, an effort to promote sustainability, preserve farmland and strengthen the state economy.

The sustainability message is one that Davis has already heard loud and clear. The Towson native has a passion for working with organic and sustainable foods, and is invested in bringing that message to the catering world.

“The governor’s competition is so important because it hits on sustainability, another whole aspect of the culinary industry,” he said. “It helps make chefs and everyone else more aware.”

Davis researched local farmers to work with in the competition, ultimately deciding to partner with Ferguson based on her farms’ chicken. Ferguson Family farm raises only free-range, grain-fed chickens, without growth hormones, antibiotics or appetite stimulants.

“It’s a better, healthier way to eat,” Davis said. “Plus [the chicken] is fantastic.”

Classic Catering People has been part of a growing trend toward sustainability in the culinary industry. The company has its own herb garden and uses products from local farmers as often as possible.

According to Davis, this sustainability awareness has many chefs experimenting with ways to take traditional dishes and infuse them with local and organic ingredients, often with positive results.

Classic Catering’s own goat cheese macaroni uses goat cheese from a local farmer, and Davis is confident that the use of local and organic ingredients has no negative effect on the taste of the dish.

“I’ll put our macaroni up against anybody’s, and ours is better,” he said.

Davis got his first taste of the cooking world as a teen working a summer job in a pizzeria kitchen. He continued to work in local kitchens while attending Towson University, before enrolling in the College of Culinary Arts at Johnson and Wales University.

Through his more than 15 years of professional culinary experience, Davis worked for places like Linwoods and Eddie's before joining the Classic Catering team in September 2010.

Despite his years of culinary experience, Davis is unsure whether his brined cherry BBQ recipe will take first place.

“I don’t know what my competition is down there,” Davis said. “This is my first time in a cooking competition, but I’m very much looking forward to being there.”

Whether Davis and Ferguson bring home the top prize is of less importance to Davis than the sustainability message the competition promotes.

“What better way to do it than in catering?” he said. “We’re trying to change the way people eat.”

All of the Buy Local Cookout competition recipe submissions will be published online following the competition. The recipes will also be published by the Maryland Department of Agriculture in its 2011 Maryland Buy Local Cookout Recipes book.