Food Technology Taste Tests
Food Technology Taste Tests
February 21, 2018 at 3:53 PM
The ovens have been fired up in the Jack Paine Centre over the last few days as our Food Technology students get their year underway in earnest.
Firstly, the students in Year 12 were tasked with creating the perfect recipe for biscotti to accompany coffee – not just any coffee, but the Saint Kentigern Blue Brew brand!
Over the course of last year, the Blue Brew signature coffee cart, operated by our student baristas, expanded operations from the Jack Paine Centre to serve from a second expresso machine in the Goodfellow Centre, giving more students the chance to hone their barista skills. Both carts are popular and well patronised by students and staff alike, with well over 6000 beverages served last year.
Meanwhile, our Year 13 students turned their attention to outdoor summer dining staples, a hamburger with a side of fries. Whilst the recipe creation and finished, plated product was important, their key focus was an introduction to food safety, in particular, storing, prepping, cooking and serving high risk food – important safe practice knowledge at any time of year but particularly in summer with heat and humidity playing a part.
The finished biscotti and hamburgers were put in front of discerning palates this week - our staff! With a marking sheet in hand, they judged each offering on appearance, taste and texture, in the case of the biscotti, to determine which two recipes will become the biscotti of choice on offer from our coffee carts.
BISCOTTI WINNERS
Class 1: Lewis Springford and Arzan Todywaller - Chocolate Biscotti
Class 2: Lydia Flatz and Millie Lyons - Lydia and Millie’s Biscotti Babies
Class 1 Runners Up
2nd Sam Barty & Nic Scarborough - Gingerbread Biscotti
3rd Olivia Wales & Gigi Holroyd - Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti
Class 2 Runners Up
2nd Amber Manuell and Eloise Smith - Double chocolate biscotti
3rd Callum Finnigan and Sylas Lavea - Vanilla choc chip biscotti
FOOD TECHNOLOGY AT SAINT KENTIGERN
Since the Jack Paine Art and Technology Centre first opened 15 years ago, many changes to the curriculum have taken place but none more so than in recent times as the ‘JPC’ reviewed its practice in response to our changing world. In times past, ‘cooking’ as a subject may have been seen as the domain of the less able student but that has long since changed. The corner of the JPC reserved for Food Technology is an area where food, art, technology and science intersect. Overarching this is the aim that design and ‘designerly thinking’ should be front and centre of Food Technology education.
Preparing students to excel in the highly competitive culinary industry goes far beyond teaching how to create the final product that appears on a plate. This multi-faceted subject is so much more than the ‘cooking class’ of old. In the Middle College, the course is a broad ranging introduction, exposing the students to culinary design, science and nutrition, paving the way for further study. By Senior College, NCEA Levels 1-3 Food Technology is a demanding course structured to scaffold the learning and pressures that students can expect to experience during tertiary study. They are prepared to approach briefs with critical and original thinking, leaving the course with an extensive portfolio and basic industrial experience.
Like all subjects in the Jack Paine Centre, Food Technology teaches students how to solve diverse problems through the synthesis of all other learning areas. Most importantly, they gain experience in the core skills necessary in any modern workplace such as intelligent failure, risk taking and the ability to work collaboratively. And let’s not forget – their food is great!
