New to Earl Haig this year, Culinary Arts is a technology course in which students learn the skills of cooking and baking. When it was announced that the course would start in the 2010/11 school year last April, over a hundred interested students attended the information meeting. The details of where the classes would take place were uncertain at that time, but students were passionate to explore the new course.
Mr.Kirk Davis teaches all sections. “The reason I decided to teach Culinary Arts was because I taught here [at Earl Haig] two years ago,” explained Mr. Davis. “I really wanted to come back to the school. Mr. Joy, the head of Tech, approached me saying there was going to be a [culinary] program opening up, and asked, ‘Are you interested in applying?’ I said yes.”
A $10,000 budget was allotted to purchase initial equipment, including a new refrigerator and freezer. Fortunately for students, the food costs were covered completely by the school budget of $3,000.
The biggest complication in starting a culinary arts program at Earl Haig will be building a new kitchen. “The plans are underway,” said Davis. “There are drawings and we have a crew coming in that is supposed to tend to the job, and it is planned to be built in the next couple years.”
Another issue that the new course is contending with is the factor of time. Because Earl Haig is a term school, students do not have culinary arts every day. This means that products that require refrigeration before baking or cooking could potentially have to sit in the fridge or freezer over the weekend before students have another class. For example, when students were making gingerbread houses, it took them two weeks to prepare the gingerbread; create a design; roll, cut, and bake the dough; and assemble and decorate with icing. By the second class of rolling and cutting, the dough had been sitting there for a week and was too dry and difficult to work with.
Until the kitchen is built, classes are being taught in room 117. All recipe preparatory work is done in this room on steel tables, bought just for the course. When an oven or stove is needed for baking, students borrow the cafeteria kitchen, located beside room 117. The cafeteria kitchen does not belong to the school. It is operated by a private company that prepares meals that are sold to students during lunch periods two and three. Because the kitchen needs to be cleaned and sanitized before student use, the culinary classes are limited to only periods four and five.
Some students feel that room 117, which is used for drama classes in the morning, is too small for the culinary arts classes. With three large steel working tables, another large table where ingredients and equipment are set up, and about twenty bustling students, things can become hectic. “Once we get to cooking [and using knives], people will be yelling ‘Knife!’ and I swear someone will get stabbed,” joked Suzy Jung, a grade ten student.
Jung, who enjoys baking in her spare time, wants to learn to make more elaborate baked goods. “I’d like [the class] more if Mr. Davis gave us more complex recipes, because we made really simple cookies and cupcakes.” said Jung. “Mr. Davis really teaches from the basics.”
He began by teaching the class how to bake. Half a year into the course, students have learned some baking theory, basic baking steps and cooking methods. Students have made a number of different types of cookies, such as no-bake, icebox, and chocolate chip. They also made and decorated cupcakes and gingerbread houses.
“I really liked making the gingerbread house,” said grade twelve student Laura Enarson, “My group made a prison. It was fun even though we didn’t get to eat it. I like the artsy part of it—how we had to cut up the pieces and put it together.” A selection of gingerbread houses is showcased in the display shelf near the guidance office.
For the first project, students were assigned to bake pizzas. The different types of crusts and large selection of toppings allowed pizzas to be a versatile food that could be customized. Students made their own dough from scratch using a stand mixer. They also assembled and baked the pizzas themselves, with minimal instruction from Mr. Davis.
The hands-on learning of the course was what really appealed to the students. “I enjoy the classes a lot,” noted Laura Enarson, “I like that we have a variety [of learning opportunities]. We learn how to work in groups and not just by ourselves.”
The course is also geared towards engaging students in the workplace. One of the initial goals for having a culinary arts program was to train students for cafeteria service in the school. It was proposed that students would prepare lunches for staff members, and potentially for other students.
“I would really like to see students eating healthy and preparing food by themselves,” said Davis. “[This course] is preparing them to get out into the world on their own.”
However, the absence of a kitchen prevents students from preparing lunches at school for each other. Nonetheless, this course marks a great step towards healthy living for students.
