Thirty aspiring chefs from Anne Arundel County high schools will converge in Glen Burnie for the sixth annual high school cook-off Friday.

The students will be grouped into three-person teams, each team member representing a different high school, and will be asked to bake a healthy pizza and create a salad within two hours. The competition will be staged in the state-of-the-art kitchen at the Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Tourism Institute in downtown Glen Burnie.

Aneemah Raqib, family and consumer sciences educator with the Maryland Cooperative Extension Service; Jodi Risse, Anne Arundel County Public Schools food services director; and a chef at the culinary institute will serve as this year’s judges.

“They’re judged on proper cooking procedures, presentation and taste,” said Mary Garner, coordinator of business education partnerships at Anne Arundel Community College, one of the sponsors of the event.

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The annual competition is part of the Tech Prep partnership between the college and Anne Arundel County Public Schools. Students enrolled in some nutrition courses in high school have the opportunity to earn college credit for their work, Garner said.

The students can take nutrition classes as electives to satisfy their state-mandated technology education credits, according to Sheryl Metzger, family and consumer science teacher specialist for Anne Arundel County Schools.

“The teachers are teaching them nutrition … and about once a week they’re getting into the labs to have one day to apply this knowledge,” Metzger said. “If they’re [learning about] carbohydrates, they could be doing something in the lab about healthy carbohydrates or something with whole grains.”

Metzger said teachers chose students to compete who said they might be interested in pursuing a career in cooking.

stracy@baltimoreexaminer.com