Working at a restaurant is not easy business, as Junior Jeff Hsiao would tell you, but the training he received in Culinary Arts class more than prepared him for the job.
The Culinary Arts Regional Occupational Program gives students the opportunity to learn about food safety and get on-the-job training. Ms. J. Ung, who has been teaching the class for 24 years, instructs the students on the industry standards regarding the handling of food, sanitation and customer interaction. The class emphasizes the quality of food, rather than the preparation of specialized dishes.
“In the classroom, we focus on basically the techniques of cooking, understanding how heat affects foods. It’s not just about cooking and eating, it’s about learning how food reacts with heat,” Ms. Ung said. “Students have made emulsions. They have worked with different degrees of heat, different flours and the different fats to produce different results. So it’s a lot of science based information.”
All of this knowledge is quickly put to use when students translate their classroom knowledge into the workplace. The ROP encourages students to volunteer at local food businesses, where employees mentor the trainees and assign them various tasks around the workplace, from stocking an aisle and bagging groceries at Super A Foods to greeting customers at Applebee’s.
“It was pretty fun and interesting,” Hsiao said. “I met a lot of new people and friends. I got to learn stuff that I didn’t know before, like folding silverware and how to talk to customers professionally. You can’t just say ‘What’s up?’”
ROP classes are a great way to find promising careers or a first job that students can write on their resumes. As with all other ROPs, Culinary Arts is built on the philosophy of giving students training for the real world and expanding the classroom setting.
“I’m hoping the students will take away the sense of ‘career’ in the food service industry, not just being a chef, but being able to manage restaurants or catering companies,” Ms. Ung said. “Food service is a business, and I’m hoping that they combine the two and be really successful in life.”