Crossword and word-search puzzles can be fun, effective tools for familiarizing students with important terms.

By Adam Weiner, JobTrain and the Sequoia Adult School

We all get in a rut. Line cooks start turning out dish after dish, caring less for the quality because they have done it over and over again. Customers go to the same places and order the same thing, not because they are afraid to try something new; they are just stuck on their tracks like a street car. Teachers have the same problem, and when we do, the students turn on their I-pods and tune us out.

I am always looking for new ways to teach the same old thing. New tricks to pull out of a hat. One of the things that I have found is the very effective use of puzzles in teaching.

Occasionally, I start a class with a word- search puzzle with all of the terms I am
going to cover in the class. I end the class with a “test” of a crossword puzzle using the same terms. It is, I have found, incredibly effective. The best part is that there are many places on the Internet where you can create puzzles for free.

One thing that separates professional cooks from their moms is how they present food. Here are five things students should remember when plating

By Adam Weiner, JobTrain and the Sequoia Adult School

Students new to cooking go through three stages of trauma. First, they worry about making enough food; second, they agonize on how the food tastes; and finally, they stress about how the food looks. Much of the presentation pain comes from most of the new generation of cooks experiencing “presentation” as bags of fast food in a car seat and “plating” by ordering at the mall’s food court.

I have found the best way to minimize the pain of the third stage is to tell students not to prepare anything until they have in their minds (or better yet, a drawing on paper) how the final plate will look.

Students think this is strange. They feel that if they start cooking, the plating and presentation will fall into place. I explain that if I asked them to build a car, they wouldn’t just pick up some screws, tires, sheet metal and glass and start hammering. They would first have a picture of the finished car. To build a car or a plate of food takes a picture and a plan.

Preparing a rack-of-lamb dinner for two, from ACF’s 2008 Educator of the Year

By Wilfred Beriau, CEC, CCE, AAC

Center-of-the-plate proteins, including American lamb, are the focus of this lesson plan for freshman in the Associate of Applied Science degree program at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland. The course, of which this lesson is a part, addresses the basic fabrication of meat, fish and poultry; stocks; the five major sauces; derivative sauces; coulis, jus lié, and reductions. The class covers moist and dry methods of cooking that demonstrate appropriate cooking methods for a wide array of products.

A key component of this lesson plan involves the preparation and presentation of a NAMP/#204A domestic rack of lamb with accompaniments of a starch, a vegetable, jus lié and herb garnish.

The method is the constant, and the ingredients are the variables.

By Samuel Glass, CEC, CCE, CCA

As the demographic of culinary schools shifts to a much more multicultural environment, embracing and celebrating cultural diversity is becoming part of the everyday life of culinary institutions. The challenge for culinary instructors is in finding a way to integrate cultural diversity into the curriculum in a tacit manner, one in which students might not recognize the true objectives, yet at the same time, achieve a sense of accomplishment and pride in their own cultural heritage and cuisine.

One of the mantras that I have always used as a culinary educator is, “The method is the constant and the ingredients are the variables.” Keeping that mantra in mind, I have found a way to celebrate the diversity of my students, while meeting the objectives of the curriculum.

A lesson plan.

By Mary Petersen and Ronald S. Wolf, CCC, CCE

This lesson plan focuses on the history of and cultural influences on Indian cuisine, the topography and climate that affect food production and preparation, key ingredients and foods, cooking methods and common equipment, a focus on culinary regions, and dietary restrictions as dictated by various religions, among other aspects. A handout as an MS Word document is available for download and copying.

By Bruce Kraig, Ph.D.

This lesson plan teaches history through American regional foodways, as influenced and reflected by geography, ecology and cultural ecology, economics, social science, anthropology and language. The lesson plan, which contains many illustrative recipes, may be downloaded as a PowerPoint presentation from this page.

A teaching module

By Ron Wolf, CCC, CCE, MA, and Mary Petersen, MS

This lesson plan examines the cuisines of three Southeast Asian nations—Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia—and their contributions to global cuisine. The lesson lists learning objectives, describes history and topography as they shape cuisine, and discusses ingredients, cooking methods and regional influences.

A lesson plan for secondary foodservice students

By Shirley P. Rauh

Shirley P. Rauh, FACS chair at Lutheran High School South in St. Louis, submitted the following Lesson Plan as a “teaching tip” entry in the 2007 CAFÉ Scholarship program that awarded four winners grants toward registration at a CAFÉ workshop or the Leadership Conference this summer.

Students in Rauh’s gourmet course have taken Foods and Nutrition as a prerequisite. The course description includes creativity in presentation through garde manger, herbs and spices, and the five mother sauces. The textbook used is Johnson & Wales University’s Culinary Essentials (Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 2002).

A lesson plan on American lamb leg, presented at the 2007 CAFÉ Leadership Conference

By Mark M. DeNittis- Courtesy of the American Lamb Board

This comprehensive lesson plan provides a basic understanding of American lamb, with a particular focus on the leg, from farm to plate. Topics include product acquisition, leg cuts and fabrication, safe handling and sanitation, best applied cooking techniques and methods, nutrition, and ideal flavors to marry with American lamb, as well as discussion questions.

Mark M. DeNittis is a chef instructor at Johnson & Wales University in Denver, and he delivered this lesson plan as a workshop to educators attending the 2007 CAFÉ Leadership Conference at Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Scottsdale, Ariz., in June. The lesson plan is suitable for student cooks, and the 11-page Word document is easy to output and copy for distribution. See the end of the document for additional sources of information on American lamb.