Yeah, definitely. Spinach (although a nice sounding idea) is definitely NOT an approved garnish.
Tough call for the rep due to the judges not speaking up about the chicken entry.
Wait - that normally wouldn't happen since no two teams entries should appear at the same table twice, if the table captains are doing their job . . .
huh?
Well, yeah, shoulda been DQ'd for sure.
12) Garnish is optional. If used, it is limited to chopped,
sliced, shredded or whole leaves of fresh green lettuce, curly
parsley, flat leaf parsley and/or cilantro. Kale, endive, red
tipped lettuce, lettuce cores and other vegetation are
prohibited. Improper garnish shall receive a score of one (1)
on Appearance.
I really wanted to not jump into this one but when you start slighting the judges, I have to.
I was at the table. When the offending box was presented for appearence scoring I immediatly saw it had a unfamiliar garnish. After all box's were scored for appearence and I told the TC to have the rep inspect it and she said it looked unusual also.
She took it to one of the reps and she could not "
exactly " identify it and took it to the senior rep who examined and tasted it and decided it was not spinach but "
was not positive" what it was and let the judging proceed. Now all this had to happen while the tables' boxs were sitting waiting to be passed around and the rest of the turn ins were still coming in. The decision was made and judging moved forward.
When ribs came in they also had the same garnish (went to a different table and also was objected to). After rib turn in the senior rep went to the cook site and asked what they were using for garnish and was told spinach. She informed them it was a illegal garnish and to stop using it.
Now was it handled correctly, no. was it handled as fairly as possible at the time, I think so.
It is the teams responsability to know and abide by the rules.
It is the reps responsability to be able to identify the garnish that is listed as legal, any other is cause for a score of 1.
It is KCBS responsability to make sure reps know what garnish looks like (provide pics of ALL legal garnish)
It is the judges responsability to report suspicious garnish and was done correctly in this case.
Now the big question is how did this affect the contest?
The team was obviously a new team and the only other scores that would have been affected are those that scored lower than the uninformed newbies that had no clue.
Anybody want to claim injury???
Ed