Culinary Education Week

We started the Culinary Education segment of our Field to Fork program for our local participating schools this week.  The students have already had their garden education and nutrition education, so they were definitely ready for the fun part: dough making 101.

For culinary education FUEL Pizza partner Zach Current teaches the students how to make pizza dough.  But it's not just Zach up in front of the classroom going through a boring recipe.  He really engages the kids - and even makes up a special science experiment at the end.

First, we teach the students about the different ingredients that go into a Fuel Pizza Dough.  We tell them why each ingredient is important.  Then, we demonstrate how to make it.  The students usually love seeing the ingredients turn into a goopy mess.  Lots of "ooohhss" and "ahhhhs" and even "eewewwwws."

Their favorite ingredient is yeast.  They think it's cool that it's a live organism eating up all the sugar in the dough.  They think it's cool that it comes alive and "breathes" into the dough.

When the mixing and kneading is done, we have a huge pile of dough that we divide into three containers.  One container goes into a refrigerator, one goes next to a window and the third one goes up high on a shelf (so no one touches it).  We ask the students to predict what will happen to each container of dough 24 hours from now.  Will it grow bigger?  Will it get smaller?  Will it explode out of the container?!  Will temperature effect the outcome?

When their culinary education segment is complete, they will be ready for their FUEL Pizza field trip.  On the field trip, students will bring their harvested vegetables to a local Fuel Pizza, take a tour of the kitchen and make their own vegetarian pizza.