In a recent Culinary Arts lesson, eighth graders made a chocolate pastry cream, then baked shells for cream puffs and assembled the sweet treats. In an upcoming lesson, they will learn how to make pasta from scratch.
In this middle school enrichment course, sixth and eighth grade students meet nearly twice a week for 90 minutes in the Bishop Hall kitchen to learn cooking and baking techniques, how to use kitchen equipment, and about food safety and sanitization. “It’s about providing new food experiences and helping build confidence in the kitchen,” said Trislyn Tom ’00 Ferris, a culinary arts faculty member within the Design Technology and Engineering Department.
Ferris said students enjoy the fun experience of cooking and, of course, tasting the recipes. “The students love sampling their creations. I often have to remind them that the purpose is to teach them how to cook, not to feed them,” Ferris said.