Pinoy chef does RP proud in Olympics

Filipino athletes may have come up empty in the recently concluded 2008 Beijing Olympics, but a Filipino chef won high praise and left a lasting impression on participants and volunteers in the quadrennial sports event.

Ryan Jaranilla, 42, brought the sweetness of Guimaras mangoes to the menu for about 12,000 athletes from all over the world and around 5,000 Olympic volunteers for almost three months before and during the Games in the Chinese capital.

As a tribute to his homeland, Jaranilla added his signature recipe, the Philippine Mango Crème Brulee, along with mango tarts and puddings, to the big salad and desserts area where he was assigned. He also put Philippine adobo into the Beijing Olympics menu. 

“I wanted the Philippines to also be known for its good food. We are popular for our sweet mangoes so I decided to put variations of desserts using the Philippine mango,” he said.  

Jaranilla said he also made popular Pinoy garlic rice, adobo and a special vegetarian pancit with tofu in the Olympic dining rooms.

Jaranilla arrived in Beijing last June and trained about 110 Chinese chefs in preparation for the Olympics.

There were seven senior executive chefs running the seven food areas in Beijing and he was second in command, reporting to the directing chef.

Jaranilla, who hails from Barotak, Nuevo, Iloilo, is in the country to visit his parents and relatives and for a brief vacation. He paid a courtesy call on Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. yesterday.

During the courtesy call, the Senate honored him for bringing pride to the country through his excellence in culinary arts.

The senior chef will go back to Irvine, California, where he has been based since 1992, on Sept. 19.

“It’s very prestigious but it is only a facade. It is a very intense and stressing job because you have to prepare food for international athletes who have different nutritional needs,” Jaranilla told The STAR in an interview at the Senate.

During the past three months that he was in China, Jaranilla recalled the hard work that went with his job but said he felt fulfilled in terms of experience and compensation.  

As tokens of the friendship he nurtured with the participants of the Beijing Olympics, Jaranilla has a collection of pins of the different country representatives decorating his Olympics identification card.

He went to the United States in 1992 to study and later work due to lack of better opportunities in the country. 

He took up a Bachelor of Arts course at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños in 1988.

In the US, he took up Nutrition at the Los Angeles City College before studying Culinary Arts at the West Lake Culinary Institute, and Catering Management at the California Polytechnic University.

Apart from jaranilla, there were also a number of Filipinos who worked at the Olympics as chefs, including Filipino-American sous chef Norma Frias, 54.

Jaranilla recalled that US Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps maintains a carbohydrate-driven diet, consuming four plates of pasta and two full pizzas in one sitting.

Gymnasts maintain a different diet as they eat more fresh salads, broccoli and light desserts with less sugar, he noted.

Jaranilla said the entire experience in Beijing was just one of the biggest challenges in his career.

He has a sterling experience as a restaurant manager, hotel chef, events manager and catering manager in his more than 12 years in the hospitality and food service industry in the United States.

His experience includes serving in after-awards parties of the Oscars, Grammy and Emmy awards.

He is a regional manager and executive chef for Aramark Corp., which has been serving the Olympic Games for the last 40 years.

He said he heard about the opportunity to serve as chef for the Olympics through his employer.

All managers were invited to submit their applications and he was fortunate to become one of 11 applicants chosen over 250 others.