Feature Stories Winter 2011 Issue

Chef in the Classroom

By Shannon Henry Kleiber | Photo By Jim Klousia 0

Standing at a demonstration station in front of the kids seated at large round tables, McKercher first shows how to cut an onion and then how to debone a chicken. “Respect the animal and the food will be good,” says McKercher, holding up the whole chicken. It’s clear some of the kids are not used to working with a whole raw bird. McKercher assures them that when they see him cut it up once, they’ll be able to do it themselves. And then he does it simply and clearly as they all watch in silence, until he cuts straight down through the ribs and one student says excitedly, “Bam!” He saves the backs and bones to make chicken stock later, then McKercher pulls out the nasty stuff—the heart and other organs—and throws it on the table. This, he says, is what they make chicken nuggets out of. Not the good parts. They put this in a grinder and say it’s chicken. The kids grimace and say “yuck.”

McKercher gives the students a little history on gumbo, a dish traditionally made with whatever meat and vegetable ingredients people had around. He introduces many of them to okra for the first time, advising that the fresh is much better than the frozen. Next up, the students tie long hair back, wash hands, and add the garlic to the pan first as it takes longer to cook than the other vegetables.

Not surprisingly, other schools have wanted to add Chef in the Classroom to their curriculum. REAP is trying to help more schools get started by creating a how-to handbook for classrooms. According to Sarah Elliott, REAP’s current Farm to School program director, the handbook will include large-scale recipes, tips on keeping food journals, and advice on introducing new foods to kids; Elliott estimates the manual will be available in about a year. She’d also like to get the kids involved in choosing and buying the ingredients. The underlying philosophy, she says, is “food just doesn’t come from the grocery store shelf.”

Once the school understands how the program works, then they will need to find a teacher or chef to run it. “There is a superstar allure around local chefs,” Elliott says, adding that REAP will use Cherokee as a model for the handbook.

At Cherokee, JoAnne Jensen teaches family and consumer education to middle schoolers and has been running a Chef in the Classroom program for 7th graders for three years. She says she knows some of the professional chefs have inspired kids to go into the cooking business. Teaching cooking and nutrition can be a challenge. Many of her students have fast-paced lives and eat a lot of fast food. “These are kids who are afraid of food. They freak out and fear whole foods because they haven’t seen them,” Jensen says. She does not win over every kid. But when she does, the effect on the student—and his or her family—is profound.

They are learning, says Jensen, no less than how to leave a smaller carbon footprint, how to do a little bit to improve the economy, the environment and their own bodies. When they have ownership of what they eat, they understand it and value it more. At the same time, they are having fun cooking together and enjoying a delicious meal.