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Chocolate tart wins Homewood Chocolate Fest Bake-off

Global Foods class students
(from left) Reshariane Hawkins,
Tamira Butler and Erin Lee
prepare a meal.
(Photo by 
Marilyn Thomas/The Chronicle)

Forget your 20th century ideas about foods class. In the 21st century, the Homewood-Flossmoor High School program is now call culinary arts and the education and training can lead students to great careers in the food industry.

Culinary arts, part of the Food and Consumer Science Program at H-F, is more than making a meal. It’s also about the presentation and how to cook in quantity as a chef or line cook or prepare specialty desserts for a restaurant or special event, explained teacher Janet Marks. Students study nutrition and diet, and learn how to make food appealing by sight, smell and taste.

“The program’s become more career-based,” Marks said. “When I teach the students, I don’t teach how to cook at home, I’m teaching them how to cook quantity or professionally,” although she said the cooking instructions can easily be transferred to preparing home meals.

Brooklyn Blue peels an
avacado, an ingredient for
a culinary arts class dish.

(Photo by Marilyn Thomas/
The Chronicle)

The program is structured around Culinary I and II. Enrollment in the introductory classes is usually 24 students per section working in groups of four. Classes generally have a 50 percent ratio of boys to girls. Students who want to continue can take Advanced Culinary and Global Foods and Nutrition. In the 90-minute lab classes, students get hands-on experience in preparing foods through an educational component.

“I demonstrate so they learn by seeing it prepared,” Marks said. “They write the recipe, I don’t hand them the recipe. They’re keeping a book because I ask them to reflect on (the dish) and then write about it.” Marks considers the writing function important to the class, and she tries to incorporate technology where possible. Doing the writing assignments helps students “learn how to describe flavors and write well.”

The American palate has become accustomed to flavors and dishes from around the world. In the Global Foods class, Marks has her students learn about dishes from Latin America, South America, China, countries in Europe, as well as regions of the United States.

“International cooking really opens up your opportunities, and helps get you out of a rut so you’re not cooking the same thing again and again,” she said.

One exercise Marks does with the advanced classes is to give them ingredients in a bag. The team of four students then prepares a meal and presents it. The students must consider how to use all the ingredients in a dish and then divide up the work between them—chopping onions or peppers, browning meat or whatever else they can do with the ingredients. Presentation and tasting are also part of the grade.

Marks and teacher Courtney Pesha are co-sponsors of the Family Career Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) Club at H-F that invites sophomores, juniors and seniors in the Food and Consumer Science program to participate in special events, such as the Family & Consumer Science Club Regional Competition earlier this month. H-F students will go on to compete at the state level in April.

Joy English, a senior in the
culinary program at H-F, won
first place-most outstanding
for her cake decorated with
Toy Story characters.
(Photo
provided by Janet Marks/H-F
Food and Consumer Science
Program)

Top culinary honors at the Feb. 4 regionals went to Joy English who took first place-most outstanding in the fondant cake section. Students were directed to decorate a cake using a movie theme. English used Styrofoam as her cake form, and then took several weeks to decorate the layered cake with “Toy Story” characters.

“She had to show the judges how she’s making the characters. She can’t just take them from the box,” Marks noted.

H-F’s other winners in the fondant cake section were Tamika Bobo, first place; and Tamira Butler, Krystin Forte and Naji Cameron each earned second.

In the cookies section, Jaida Thompson won first place-most outstanding for her cookie decorated with the Sharks and Jets theme from “West Side Story.” Jaylah Jones took first place and Tierra Brooks, second place.

In the salads section, students were judged on their skill level on food and presentation. Jazzmine Lee took second place and Kwame Amuh, third place.

The television show “Food Network” has inspired Lee, a sophomore. Her uncle is a chef and a cousin has a bakery. They’ve shared tips with her, and she’s been in the kitchen since she was about 10 years old. “(Cooking) just became a passion,” she said.


Contact Marilyn Thomas at [email protected]

Culinary arts teacher Janet Marks gives instruction to
Krystin Forte,
a special projects intern.
(Photo by
Marilyn Thomas/The Chronicle)

 

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