Eligibility

The contest is open to residents of the fifty states of the United States and the District of Columbia.

Directors and employees of National Chicken Council and their immediate families are not eligible.

Previous first place winners of the National Chicken Cooking Contest are not eligible.

Each contestant must be a resident of the state he or she is representing at the time the contestant submits his or her entry.

Questions as to residency will be decided by the National Chicken Council.

Any contestant selected for the National Cook-Off who has not reached the age of eighteen by the first day of the Cook-Off proceedings (May 1, 2009) must be accompanied to the Cook-Off by a parent or adult guardian at the entrant's expense.

Criteria and Ingredients

Judging will be based on:  taste, appearance, simplicity, and appeal.

The recipe must use chicken. It can be a whole chicken, or any part or parts; fresh (raw) chicken; marinated raw chicken; pre-cooked chicken, such as rotisserie; or ground chicken.

Recipe should provide 4 to 8 servings

Recipe must be cooked twice in a three-hour time period, once for the judges and once for display.  The dish to go to the judges must be completed within two hours of the start of the cookoff.

Grilling recipes are not allowed.

Judging

A finalist from each state and the District of Columbia will be selected by an independent recipe judging panel, not by random drawing.

Each state finalist will receive a prize of $100 (one hundred dollars). 

Each state finalist recipe will subsequently be judged in a regional competition based on the nine official divisions of the United States as determined by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.  Each of the nine regional winners will receive a prize of $1,000 (one thousand dollars) and an expense-paid trip to the National Cook-Off in May 2009.  The regional prize will be presented to each regional winner at the National Cook-Off.  Only the regional winners will go to the National Cook-Off.

Each finalist must abide fully by Contest rules and procedures; failure to do so may result in selection of an alternate finalist.  Failure to participate in the National Cook-Off will result in forfeiture of the regional prize of $1,000.

Timing

State finalists will be notified by December 31, 2008.  Regional finalists will be notified by February 15, 2009.  Persons selected as state or regional finalists must respond to the selection in a timely manner in order to confirm his or her selection.

Status of Entries

All entries become the property of the National Chicken Cooking Contest.  Entry constitutes permission to edit, modify, adapt, publish and otherwise use the recipe in any way without compensation.

Entries will not be acknowledged or returned. 

Taxes on the prizes are the responsibility of winners.

Judges' decisions are final.

Originality

Entries must be original. "Original" is defined as not previously published in the same or substantially the same form.  Contestant finalists will be required to certify that the entry is "original."

Authority

All Contest rules are subject to change by the National Chicken Council without notice.