Cooking Class 101 Gives College Students a Boost in the Kitchen
By the All Culinary Schools career research team—Your source for Culinary School news, trends and programs.
Today's college students know a lot about food, according to Bonnie Stern, owner and teacher at Toronto's Bonnie Stern Cooking School, but they don't necessarily have the cooking skills to make that knowledge take practical form. Fast food or other unhealthy choices often end up as the default option.
"They watch the Food Network, they eat in restaurants, they are trying more exotic foods than their parents ever did, yet they say they don't want to cook because they are too busy," says Stern in an article in the Canadian Press. Her solution is a three-hour class for students starting college that focuses on basic recipes such as roast chicken or salad dressing, how to choose the right recipe for your time and skill level, appropriate planning and creative ways to use leftovers.
Stern also emphasizes the enjoyable aspects of cooking, encouraging students to think of it as a relaxing and sociable activity rather than a chore. Her idea is obviously working—she first offered the course 10 years ago, and it has become a regular offering at her cooking school at the end of each summer. It's been especially popular with her culinary school students whose college-aged children needed a place to learn the basics of cooking, but didn't want to learn from mom or dad.
If you're the one at your college who knows how to really cook, Stern says, it can seem like a mysterious and miraculous ability: "[P]eople love to help and think you are this genius, and those around you will want to start cooking as well."
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