For many, school sometimes feels tedious and draining, as if what students are taught will have no use in the adult world. Many students feel unprepared for independent life after high school, missing crucial skills they need to thrive. However, one way students explore skills that feel useful is through hands-on experience, specifically in the kitchen. Culinary Arts 1 and Culinary Arts 2 are both classes in the hospitality, tourism and recreation sector of the career technical education pathway. These courses focus on preparing students for real-life scenarios, including learning to cook for yourself or host others, while teaching the essentials of cooking. 

Culinary Arts 1 and 2 teacher and experienced chef Kelly Loflen uses her class time to hone in on the core principles of cooking. 

“Culinary 1 is our introduction level class; we try to teach kids the foundations of food, from safety and sanitation, how to measure, how to chop, and then how to cook using specific techniques,” Loflen said. “In Culinary 2, we use international dishes to expand knowledge and skills. I encourage students to modify their dishes; I really want people to figure out what food and flavors they like.”

Why?

“Everyone needs to know how to cook,” Loflen said. “It might seem like an overwhelming task to plan a menu, grocery shop and prep, but it is fun, relaxing and creative. It’s something you look forward to doing.” 

Loflen emphasizes that cooking for yourself is beneficial beyond a creative outlet.

“If you are going to eat what you cook, you’re going to eat healthier,” Loflen said. “You are going to know what ingredients you are putting into it, and when you go out to a restaurant, you know what you are willing to spend money on for someone to cook it for you.”

Where do I start?

Whether you are taking a class or following a YouTube tutorial, Loflen recommends visual, hands-on learning. 

“There are so many free resources out there,” Loflen said. “YouTube’s great. It is really nice to watch what someone’s doing, and then just grab a cutting board, grab a knife and try it for yourself. 

The first step in making any dish is ensuring you understand what a recipe is telling you.

“Cooking is a language, and they are expecting you to know it,” Loflen said. “You have to learn the vocab and understand measurements to understand what a recipe is saying.” 

Culinary methods

“Dry heat cooking is cooking without moisture,” Loflen said. “So when you are talking about a scrambled egg, you put a tiny bit of oil, and you scramble it, so the heat is being transferred through the pan, not the oil.”

Another method is moist cooking.

“When you are making a poached egg, you are cooking it in water,” Loflen said. “So you are getting that water hot and putting the egg in it, and that hot water is what is cooking the egg.”

The method you use defines the texture of your dish. 

“Say you want to do a shredded chicken breast,” Loflen said. “If you cook them in water, they are going to be tender, but if you want a crispy, baked chicken, you put it in the oven to use dry heat.”

Culinary Arts 1 and freshman Biology: The Living Earth teacher Michael Lopez explains the difference between heat sources and how they can be used.

“Baking is just in an oven,” Lopez said. “You use even heat by applying the heat source at the bottom of the oven, and if you preheat it, you circulate [the heat] around.”

Ovens have many uses, including broiling.

“Broiling is just like upside-down grilling,” Lopez said. “Where you have a strong heat element from above, and you usually place other racks fairly close … so it is not like even cooking all around, it is direct heating from above.”

Another approach is to use a pan to sauté.

“Sauteing is using some sort of pan or flat metal surface,” Lopez said. “You move food, usually small pieces, around with a little bit of fat.”

Loflen emphasizes three core skills she believes everyone should be able to master. 

“Everyone should know how to roast vegetables,” Loflen said. “Roasting vegetables is super easy, and super important.”

Loflen also encourages students to learn how to “bake off protein and [learn how to make] a good stir fry where you saute vegetables and make a sauce.” She suggests incorporating a grain to make a balanced meal, “You could [add] a grain to [make] a ‘bowl meal,’ where you get everything you need.”

The culinary course emphasizes that knowing how to clean up and manage your time is just as important as knowing how to cook. Students in the culinary classes can be seen washing dishes and cleaning their areas when they have spare time. 

“One of the big things is clean as you go,” Loflen said. “Soak things, just rinse them off, really anything you can do to make your clean up easier. If you have a pan with cheese in it and you leave it out, it is going to get hard and awful to clean [and] if you soak it, it will be easier.”

Tools

“All you really need is one cutting board, a good chef’s knife, a bowl, a saute pan, a stock pot, a rubber scrapper and a baking sheet,” Loflen said. 

But what Lofeln considers “essential” might seem unusual, prioritizing a versatile instrument over more common appliances.

“If you are going to get one appliance,” Loflen said. “I would say a food processor, because it can make dough and shred things [and] you can even make soup in it.”

No matter what tools you have, knowing how to identify and use them is crucial, especially when handling knives.

“The first thing you should be able to do is identify different knives,” Loflen said. “Which knife is best for what? What if you only buy one? If you can get two, what to get? A good chef’s knife will pretty much do everything.”

The culinary curriculum ensures that students are proficient in knife skills, teaching them proper grip to prevent future accidents. 

“Most people think they want to hold their knife further back on the handle,” Loflen said. “But you want to think of your knife as an extension of your arm, and have a firm grip. If your knife is further back, it will be looser, and something could easily go wrong, so having a good knife grip is important.”

Knife skills involve knowing the vocabulary to understand what a recipe wants you to do, Loflen suggests practicing specific cuts.

“Practice slicing,” Loflen said. “So, cutting things the same thickness, then dicing, a cube with each side even. Then, go into doing herbs and rough chopping. If you can chop well, it makes [cooking] a lot easier, and less likely to have an accident.”

For students struggling to begin in culinary, Loflen suggests that they “start somewhere.” 

“Try it,” Loflen said. “You’re going to fail. You’re gonna burn things. Sometimes it’s a bad recipe, but that’s how you try it … If you have a family member who knows how to cook, cook with them, watch them, ask them how to prep, especially [someone of] an older generation, because they have so much knowledge in their heads, so many things they’ve learned. When they say, ‘Oh, I don’t have a recipe for it,’ … they’ve [made] it so many times. They know what flavors go together.”