EARL OF MARCH PUTS SOME SIZZLE INTO CULINARY ARTS
Nancy Watzenboeck was in Italy when she heard about a topic explored in this space: the lost art of home cooking.
“Seven people sent me your article when I was away,” Watzenboeck says. “Everything mentioned in there is kind of what we’re trying to achieve with our classes.”
At Earl of March Secondary School in Kanata, Watzenboeck teaches a cooking program that is part of the health curriculum. It’s on a roll. What began 10 years ago with two sections of food instruction has expanded to 12.
The program is extremely popular with 300 students enrolled in courses offered for grades 10 to 12. At one time, this would have come under the heading of family studies and would have involved cooking and sewing.
The reincarnation is food focused and just as popular with boys as with girls.
“Popular cooking shows on TV changed the dynamic a bit,” Watzenboeck says. “In many of my classes, I get more boys than girls.”
The program aims high. A few weeks ago, Watzenboeck led 25 students on a culinary tour of Italy. (Where were these courses when we went to school?)
Watzenboeck’s Grade 11 food and culture class brings students in touch with the history and tradition of national fare.
And it cuts both ways. Recently, a group of Japanese exchange students were at Earl of March to learn about Canadian cuisine (the visitors also got a chance to tour Ottawa and Montreal).
For the occasion, the Canadian hosts came up with a new dish that incorporated a bit of Prairie culture — the perogy, brought to Western Canada by immigrants from Ukraine — and Quebec’s poutine.
Despite a language barrier, the Japanese got on quite well, observing the Canadians as they did their prep work and then jumping into the rolling, boiling and frying. A group of Kanata students will be visiting Japan this summer.
It’s unlikely they will find a dish in Tokyo quite like the one they made together: “perogy poutine” made from scratch.
Potato squares are wrapped in fresh perogy dough, quick boiled, then browned in butter. The finishing touches are homemade gravy (using chicken broth from a previous session) and cheese curds. Students learn as they go — “Do we want lumps in the gravy?” one asked.
Their teacher cautions them about cooking butter at a high heat because it burns easily.
“Don’t drench them in butter. You only need a bit,” Watzenboeck says.
The students work together well. There is no fooling around and only minimal eating on the job.
“It would be torture if they didn’t get a sample,” said one teacher.
The sights and smells are enticing, even for a casual morning visitor.
The result is a tasty collaboration of Western and Eastern Canada.
The cooking classes often sell their products within the school to help raise funds for food supplies or to feed an at-risk group. Teachers will buy meals on Fridays, readily available take-home made on the school property.
Some of the cooking facilities are holdovers from the days when home economics was still taught in schools, though the modern program had to raise money to upgrade the kitchen.
While the teachers aren’t trained chefs, they took courses to get additional qualifications.
“We’re passionate home cooks,” Watzenboeck says.
At the Grade 10 level, students work their way toward a yearend project of organizing a threecourse meal for their family, first shopping for the whole foods, then preparing and cooking.
By Grade 12, a health and nutrition class learns how to swap out ingredients to pump up the nutritional profile of the food they are making.
Feedback from parents and students has been positive for a program that strikes back at the fast-food culture that has emerged in the last 10 to 15 years.
“We’re trying to inspire kids to cook for themselves,” Watzenboeck says. “Handing down cooking tips is a bit of a lost art. It’s a really important life skill.” wscanlan@postmedia.com Wayne Scanlan writes a regular column on fitness and health.