Culinary Arts helps students prepare for future in food industry
If you enter the culinary arts class kitchen at Southwest High School, you can see the students learning certain recipes and attaining certain skills depending on the specific class they’re taking, whether it’s Culinary Arts 1, 2, or Advanced.
The Southwest culinary program gives the students enough knowledge and experience to be able to get a job or get a degree in hospitality and culinary arts when they graduate.
Amanda Hill has worked at Southwest as the culinary arts teacher for approximately 10 years, and she has multiple students getting jobs at restaurants and bachelor degrees in culinary or hospitality.
“In this program, they will learn all the foundation skills, they will leave here with all the foundational skills to enter the workforce,” Hill said.
In the program, students learn how to make food from scratch, even if they don’t have prior experience cooking and baking. They learn what they must from the instructions and guidance. In this class, students create the dishes they were instructed to make and, unless an event is coming up, they get to eat their creations.
“The kids are able to see themselves be successful and produce something,” Hill said.
The class is not only about learning how to cook, it is also about learning how to make things from scratch with their own hands, to work through the process and get an end product. The students gain experience not only by making food for themselves and their classmates but also from working at the student-run restaurant Kafe 56, which opens for the teachers during half Wednesdays.
Southwest High School graduate Kassandra Galaviz-Almada is a second-year college student and a former culinary arts student. She was participated in the program for two years and is currently still involved in the food industry through hospitality management.
“This program has helped me discover what my passion really is, which is baking and pastry arts,” Galaviz-Almada said.
She said not only did this program help her prepare for her future career in the food industry but it also helped her learn which branch she would like to work in. The culinary program doesn’t just give the students cooking lessons but also teaches them safe food-handling and prepares the students for test for a food-handling license.
“Some certifications that I earned were my food handlers’ card, which would allow me to work in whatever food industry I want to,” Galaviz-Almada said.
A food-handling license is required of every worker in the food industry.
Kayleen Reyna Tejada, a 17-year-old junior who is currently taking Culinary Arts 1, said that she is taking the culinary arts program at Southwest because she is planning to apply to a culinary school after graduation.
“This program is helping reach my goal in becoming a good cook by teaching me the ways of how food is supposed to be made well,” said Tejada.