Cook-off chance for students to show skills in kitchen

May 17, 2018 | 6:00 PM

How about noshing on buffalo meatballs, bruschetta, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, bannock, pork souvlaki, and perogies for lunch?

These were just a few of the tasty morsels students in Grades 10, 11 and 12 in North Battleford Comprehensive High School’s commercial cooking program dished out to guests attending the school’s Taste of Food Banquet cook-off Thursday. The students combined their passion and hard work to make a full-course dinner served in bite sizes for a large group of people, as part of their semester’s final project. According to their instrucotr, the outcome couldn’t be tastier. 

“It’s a really good learning opportunity going through this motion,” Teacher Janice Staff said. “In this program they have to design a menu. Then, the big final project is to create a menu to feed about 250 people. Each student has to do that. It’s really amazing to see the work ethic of some of these students.”

The event was also a fundraiser, Staff said, and all the money raised will be going to the Kids First charity.

About 85 students in five classes took part, and Staff said the students had to learn how to increase the portion sizes of the recipe they selected for the project to accommodate all their guests.

“They make and prep the food like you would actually do if you were working in a restaurant,” Staff said. 

Students created appetizers, soups, salads, entrées and desserts, and spent three days preparing the entire meal. Staff said they also learned time-management skills and found out what the demands would be if they needed to make and serve a large quantity of food while working on a deadline.

“They can go all the way to be a health inspector, a nutritionist or a dietician,” she said. “They can manage their own restaurants … There are lots of opportunities in this area.”

 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

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