STETHS students embrace culinary experience
Published:Thursday | March 31, 2022 | 12:05 AMCarl Gilchrist/Gleaner Writer
Thirteen students from St Elizabeth Technical High School in Santa Cruz, with their focus firmly set on hospitality and tourism management, journeyed to Jamaica’s north coast with two teachers to attend the first-ever Culinary Arts and Gastronomy Symposium, March 28-30, at the HEART College of Hospitality Services in Runaway Bay, St Ann.
The long journey, as explained by teachers Harane Samuels and Dian Young from the school’s Human Ecology Department, was meant to allow the students to gain first-hand experience in a professional setting, which would put them in good stead not just for examinations, but for the working world after school.
Exposure to the knowledge and experience of world-renowned culinary specialists, such as Jamaican executive chefs Randie Anderson and Dennis McIntosh, local mixology ambassador Gossett Brown, American chefs Tim Patridge and Tony Biggs, among others, would leave lasting impressions on the young minds, the teachers argued.
“They are actually looking into their career paths now, so it’s a way of positioning them into the field that they love and appreciate,” Samuels said.
“[It’s a] perfect avenue, because here they are actually exposed to training facility. As hospitality and tourism management students, they now are being exposed to various functions on weekends and functions within the school – we have funerals, weddings and stuff that we get them attached to as well; so this is the ideal environment to have them associated with. It actually will help in building them as individuals and enhancing their skills.”
The three-day event also includes presentations, panel discussions, cooking demonstrations, and ice-carving demonstrations.
And according to Young, the first-hand experience will offer great benefits to the students.
“I know that it will impact them because now that they’re here, they’re getting the first-hand experience. They’re getting additional information that will impact their future career or their future decisions. So, taking them out in the field will definitely allow them to get that feel of the world of work, basically,” Young argued.
BROADEN INTERESTS
Upper-sixth-form student and future chef Mark Cain concurred, admitting that the experience of attending the gastronomy symposium will help the group.
“I think gastronomy is important to us as students because, as we’re majoring in food and nutrition and (food) preparation, it will help us broaden our information base, broaden our interest, broaden our experiences in food preparation, and teach us a lot of valuable information for the future,” Cain said.
Referencing the link between food and emotion, Cain added that there is more to food than just consumption.
“There is something about food that draws people together and helps us to express more emotions. So I wanted to be a chef because I want to express my emotions in those foods and help people become happier, or help them feel their emotions more clearly,” he stated.