SAIIER 2018:Cooking program
 BHU/EARTH Performances |
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 “Divine Flowers” exhibition |
| Cooking program | ||
by Laurence
This program gives Auroville youth an introduction to multicultural cuisine. It introduces students to major different cooking styles and dietary approaches. It also trains the students in basic kitchen technical skills and approaches to kitchen management. The course also stages some major catering events prepared by them.
The aim of this program is to expose youths to a wide range of different approaches so they can create their own cooking style and diet, and at the same time be able to work in any middle-range collective or restaurant kitchen as a commis.
Outcomes:
This year, 16 students initially benefited from the program spread in 2 classes.
Last year, some of the students who had registered for the program were interested in the job of cook. Out of 10, three of them are in a cooking school this year and two are working in the cooking business.
This year, the students who registered are almost all in Future School, 3rd or 4th year. They are interested in cooking as a hobby. We had to adapt the classes and the content of the teachings to something lighter than last year.
At the end of the year, 4 students remain. The others were lost on the way.
Reflections and future direction:
What we learned is that the program has to adapt according to the profile of students that register. And it is what we did this year. We focused on practise because we met no interest from the students in going further.
For the future, we are willing to try another type of approach for the students still studying, more integral. We want to make a program of one trimester (2 to 3 afternoons a week) where the students learn about food: multicuisine cooking practise, learning the economics of cooking (via the introduction to managing a restaurant in Auroville and PTDC), the ecology of it (through introduction to organic farming in AuroOrchard for example), sociology, ATB sessions on sensing food, Ayurveda and nutrition basics. We would run 3 sessions a year.
If at the end of a session, some students want to dive in deeper, we will organise a few to few program for them.
We still have to find a way of making the students stand for their initial commitment.
