Food for thought

DACC serves up culinary program

BY MIKE HELENTHAL

DANVILLE — Students are experiencing a taste of the rigors of preparing food for a living under a new culinary program now offered at Danville Area Community College.

The first three classes under the 30-credit program started with the spring semester last week.

“The demand has always been there,” said Sara Van De Walker, director of corporate and community education, “but you have to have the kitchen and you have to have good instructors.”

The kitchen was created in November 2007 with the opening of a renovated Workforce Development Center and class-planners went immediately to work drafting certificate program criteria and hiring teaching chefs to start the culinary program.

“This is a program that we can expand so much,” Van De Walker said, adding school officials were already seeking a partnership with a recognized cooking school.

“We can keep making it stronger,” she said. “We have off-and-on over the years had food classes, but this is an in-depth study of the topic.”

The three classes this spring include Culinary Essentials, Food Sanitation and Safety and Bakeshop I. Seven more classes will focus on everything from stocks, sauces and soups, to nutrition and menu planning. DACC had previously offered only basic cooking classes.

Officials still are finalizing details to make the certificate program eligible for student Pell grant assistance, she said, though anyone in the community can take a class to hone a specific kitchen weak spot.

Students from the county’s high schools also may take the new culinary classes through the High School Express program, wherein they receive both graduating and college credit.

“They’re going to need a lot more knowledge if they want to get their foot in the door in the local food industry,” she said. “It’s also for people who just like to cook.”

Either way, said James Crook, one of the instructors, students need to put on their game faces when they take one of his classes. He said, while cooking can be fun, it’s also a serious business that can make customers sick if food isn’t properly pre-pared.

“It’s a disciplined vocation,” he said. “In the classroom I set a standard: We’re serious about this. You can have fun but you have to work.”

Crook said his Culinary Essentials class studies tools and equipment, techniques and methods, but admits there’s an intangible talent to being a professional chef.

“You have to have a little passion,” he said. “You usually get two or three kids are really interested. A chef doesn’t need a recipe.”

And like the students, he added, chefs are always eager to learn something new. Working in the local industry for three decades after following his father’s career, Crook said he is still trying to master muffins.

“I’ve had three different classes and they’ve all been different,” he said. “I wish I had learned it 30 years ago.”

Culinary teacher Anthony Brown, influenced by his grandmother’s cooking but partial to preparing French and Italian cuisine, said he enjoys sharing new techniques with students and helping them understand why it’s so important to the final product.

“A lot of them pick up some techniques from their parents,” he said. “We give them the reasons behind why we do those things and how it affects the food.”

Eighteen-year-old Hannah Kester, taking the “essentials” class through the Danville High School Express program, said she’s happy to see the classes offered locally because she hopes to make food-preparation her career choice.

“Right now, it’s just always been a hobby,” she said, adding she was recently accepted at Indianapolis’s Art Institute Chefs Academy. “I practice at home a lot and I really don’t want to do anything else.”

Kester said a grandmother was a caterer, which gave her an early glimpse of the many details in preparing large meals. She said working in a large kitchen is a challenge because rules must be followed that affect the entire process.

“This class has been more cooking and hands-on than I’ve had before,” she said, adding she has also taken a cake-decorating course through the college and excels at cookie baking.

“I just like the way things smell,” she explained.

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