Continuing on with the weekly lessons at the Karen Blixen Camp‘s new hospitality school. This is a community project to help local Masai youngsters in an area with very high unemployment and which Real Africa is very proud to be assisting.
This week saw the consolidation and practice of all the students newly learned cooking methods from all the way back to their very first day. This meant they had to show Rune the Head Chef and Headteacher all their techniques from boiling, poaching, shallow-frying and roasting. The students also worked with both old and familiar recipes as well as trying out brand new ones. This meant they could perfect their skills and also try their better knowledge using “new-to-them” ingredients.
The lessons start off based on theory which is then developed into practical skills on the same day. Rune was teaching the basics in the morning and repeating the cooking methods and then asking the students to talk about a chosen topic. This week in Week 5 of the course the topics were all selected from a mix of lessons learned over the previous 4 weeks. The students have improved when it comes to talking about food. but are still a little shy to give their opinions on a dish. They don’t like being critical and they aren’t as confident as they should be about their own tastes and opinions. Rune however has noticed that when he is not around and the students are just hanging out together they are much more relaxed and they do chat freely about food and cooking then. Rune tries to encourage them to talk to their partner while they are actually cooking; to swap ideas and opinions, tips and techniques amongst themselves and to work as a team.
Homemade chilies and chili sauces
So overall these 5 weeks have been exciting for Rune the head-teacher. He says he can feel that all the stress and nerves felt by the student at the beginning has all gone. Rune has now got a little bit of spare time and has started some small projects already. Among these he has been creating a passion fruit syrup made from the fruit leftovers, a lemon oil made with lemon zest and chili pickled in oil. His new chili seeds also came this week, which he planted in some homemade pots – now there arer 13 seeds starting to germinate. These seeds (20-30 of every type) are also being offered to the forestry school, if they should be interested in growing vegetables in their teaching scheme. The plan with these chilies is to do a chili tasting later on in the school year when the students have progressed to the stage where they are growing food. Although chili testing is only really for the brave!
Tough teaching days
Some days are very discouraging and overall the weeks are a bit up and down on the learning and teaching front. Happily enough despite the frustrating days where no one seems to remember a thing, there are also plenty of good days. It’s hard to pin point what made the students work like professionals on particular days, it seems that on some days it just comes together and makes sense to the students and on other days, nothing falls into place at all. There is no pattern in the good and bad days. I guess that’s just the day to day rhythm of a school.
This particular week it turned out that the best day by far was also the last day. They students had to create a brand new recipe in the morning and then cook it themselves in the afternoon. They also had to keep their workstations clean, keep it organized and structured whilst doing their cooking. The recipe had to be something which they had worked with in the past weeks. They just had to remember what they had done, perhaps learn from earlier mistakes and put all their learning into practice to create a beautiful and tasty plate of food. The students surpassed themselves and truly surprised Head Chef Rune. He was especially impressed that he didn’t have to get involved at all and that they even went ahead and gave the kitchen a deep clean at the end of the day’s work.
Then after 5 long and intensive weeks it was half term for the students and they all enjoyed a well deserved week off before returning back to school.
Posted by Ruth Bolton