There was a lot of “building” underway this past month at Mississippi University for Women’s Culinary Camp for Kids — building skill sets, building palates, confidence and friendships. Campers in second through 12th grade filled four week-long sessions. Eighteen participants in seventh through 12th grade participated in the final week that concluded Friday.
Chef Vicki Leach of Starkville returned to direct the 2016 camp, reprising a role she filled for many years as MUW Culinary Arts Institute chef instructor.
“I’ve enjoyed being back in MUW’s kitchens this summer,” Leach said. “I absolutely love to teach people in the kitchen. I love to see light bulbs go off over their heads — and I can see it! It’s light bulb moments that make teaching culinary camps so enjoyable.”
Many campers in the final session had attended before; quite a few do at least some cooking at home. Leach and her staff were able to increase focus on menu development and balance for this older group.
“Older kids are a little more self-sufficient, able to read a little better, analyze, do things quicker and think a little freer, so we try to give them an opportunity to give us input to a point,” Leach said.
Sweet ‘n sour
On Tuesday, campers worked in teams on assignments for salads, special sandwiches and soups. One task was to make a salad with available ingredients and create suitable vinaigrettes for them. So, Tuesday was also vinegar-tasting day.
“Ohhhh! That’s so strong,” 13-year-old Jessie Gerhart exclaimed, wincing after sampling one of eight vinegars Leach had everyone taste — apple cider, red wine, tarragon, balsamic and distilled white vinegar among them.
“I want you guys to taste for acidity,” Leach told the group. “Some of these will knock your socks off.”
Campers learned that the lower the pH, the more acid in vinegars, and how vinegars can add flavor to foods ranging from salad dressings to fish and chips to turnip greens. By comparing the “assertiveness” of various vinegars, they realized how changing a simple ingredient can alter the taste of many dishes.
Vinegars were a revelation to Gerhart, a Texas teen visiting her grandparents in Columbus, Jim and Dorothy Gerhart.
“I’m really picky with food. I don’t normally try new things, but I made a vinaigrette using champagne vinegar,” she said. “I also tried a lot of new vegetables during the week, like eggplant and broccoli. They were a lot better than I thought they were going to be.”
10,000 taste buds
It’s all part of the building process. In this case, the palate — the recognition and appreciation of tastes and flavors. Leach and her assistants exposed students to many foods during each session to help develop that ability. It creates “flavor memories” in the brain.
“We have about 10,000 taste buds when we are young, and the more foods we expose kids to the more of those taste memories they have, and the more foods they learn to love. And in a culture of fast food hamburgers and French fries, that’s important.”
Farm-to-table only works when you actually bring real farm foods to real family tables and teach kids to eat real foods, Leach stressed. If youth don’t learn to like a wide variety of food, this country is destined to continue its distinction of being the sickest in the world.
“We’ve reached a time in history where we, as a society, eat out more than we eat at home,” she said. “That’s so incredibly sad … especially when we have such an abundance of foods to choose from.”
For William Shelton, 14, camp week brought a rush of new skills and experiences. While he cooked some at home before, he now feels confident in doing more.
“It taught me so many things that I didn’t know how to do — what kind of knives I need, how to correctly cut things, how to cook things in a healthier way, like vegetarian lasagna. I’d never have thought of cooking lasagna without meat, but it was delicious!”
The Ripley resident who stayed with his uncle, Ralph Kinard in Starkville, for camp week also discovered fresh herbs, like basil and mint. It has inspired him to grow them at home.
“I’d never used nutmeg in potatoes, or ricotta cheese, and I’d never learned about an egg wash,” he said. Shelton even learned how to make hummus, which he made at home for his family this past weekend.
There is another benefit of culinary camp that may not seem as obvious as the skills participants go home with: the social component. In Shelton’s case, “I’m usually not really comfortable meeting new people. I thought I might be a little homesick when I got there, but when I got in the kitchen and started cooking, I loved it! I felt like I was cooking with my own family because they treated me with respect and were so nice.”
Like Shelton and Gerhart, several students wish culinary camp could last all summer, which means camp accomplished one of its goals — to create excitement about food. That can translate into campers making good decisions about what they choose to eat, now and in future, as more light bulb moments come their way.
“Hopefully they will go home and try to replicate some of the experiences they had,” Leach said. “We want to create a life skill in them that they can continually build on.”
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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