Prepping students: culinary arts program gives students real-world experience – Index-Journal

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Emma Cockrell, a junior at Emerald High School, has always been a picky eater.

“I thought, why not try cooking new foods and seeing if I like something new?” Cockrell said. “In here, what you cook, you have to try, so I have no choice.”

So she joined the culinary arts program at the G. Frank Russell Technology Center.

“At first it was for the experience but I’m now thinking about getting a career in cooking,” she said. “I feel more comfortable when I’m in the kitchen than any other kind of workplace.”

The program is led by Jay Hancock, now in his third year at the Russell Technology Center.

Jay Hancock, the former head chef at Lander University, is now in his third year leading the program. Since he took over, the program has grown “tremendously,” said RTC director Bonnie Corbitt. It now consistently has a waiting list.

Hancock said he wants the students to leave with two things: an understanding of safety and sanitation and an understanding of the professional kitchen environment.

“We’re talking about hazards to the food supply — we can kill somebody,” Hancock said. His students cannot work in the kitchen until they earn a ServSafe Food Handler certificate. “I want them to have that as a habit so if they go into a kitchen, a professional kitchen, they don’t have to be taught how to clean a table, they don’t have to be taught how to clean some dishes, they don’t have to be taught how hot to cook the chicken to.”

With changes to the South Carolina food code that took effect on July 1, certification is especially relevant. Every restaurant must now have someone with the food handler certificate on hand at all times.

On Thursday, Hancock’s Culinary Arts 1 class was prepping a meal to be served at a Greenwood SC Chamber of Commerce event, Women Linking Women, they would be hosting the next morning.

Students at different stations prepared the quiches and fruit they would be serving; upstairs, others laid out tables. Every couple of minutes, a timer went off, and Hancock went from station to station, making sure students were working fast enough to clean up when it was time to head to the next class.

Jamari Arnold, a senior at Greenwood High, appreciates how Hancock leads the kitchen. The real world feel, he said, has prepared him for the future.

“The coolest parts are getting to work with everybody and being in the kitchen with everybody,” Arnold said. “The toughest part I’d say is (when) things get rough, people start to work differently. But you got to know how to keep your composure in the kitchen when stuff starts getting tight.”

Arnold said he is thinking about pursuing an associate degree in culinary arts at Greenville Technical College. Because Greenwood’s Piedmont Technical College doesn’t offer the degree, the Greenwood Promise scholarship will cover the cost of Arnold’s tuition to pursue it at one of the three technical colleges in South Carolina that do: Greenville Horry-Georgetown and Trident, in Charleston.

As for Cockrell, she has accomplished her goal of expanding her palette.

“I found out I like tuna,” Cockrell said. “I still don’t like poached eggs but I’m really good at cooking them.”