BROOKLYN, N.S. — Hants County schoolchildren are learning the value of good food — and they are helping others in the process.
West Hants Middle School is hosting the kitchen brigade program — an after school culinary workshop that is designed to teach basic cooking skills and promote healthy eating.
The program was launched in Quebec in 2012 and has since expanded across the country. While it’s intended for high school students between the ages of 12-17 years, this is the second year that West Hants Middle School students have taken part.
“This is all about fighting food insecurity and learning at a young age basic cooking skills,” said chef Domenic Padula, who helps guide the Grade 7 and 8 students over the 22 week program.
Padula said the kitchen brigade program is currently running in eight schools across Nova Scotia, but he believes Brooklyn’s program is the only one operating inside of a middle school.
Padula said the buy-in from the students, school and local sponsors has made the extracurricular activity the success that it is.
This is the second kitchen brigade program Grade 8 student Jessica Myles has participated in. She said she enjoyed the first one so much that she wanted to try it again and further improve on her kitchen skills.
“I learned how to cut better and how to steam vegetables and cook meat,” said Myles, adding that she’s gaining more skills with each lesson.
Myles said it’s important for youth to learn how to cook.
“In the future, you can cook for yourself and not have to rely on fast food, which is unhealthy,” she said.
Grade 7 student Ryleigh Hingley said she loves cooking and helping her family when they’re at home so joining the brigade was a logical choice for her. She says she’s learned a lot so far.
“You get to learn a lot of stuff about cooking and you get to learn new recipes. To me, the program is super fun,” she said, noting her favourite recipe so far has been General Tao tofu over noodles — a spicy dish that she had never tried before.
Throughout the course, students learn basic and then more advanced cooking skills while having the opportunity to try different types of food. There are 25 participants and they compete in teams of five to finish each challenge presented by Padula and are awarded points. The program runs from 3:30-6 p.m. once a week and the youth stay to clean their workstations after joining together to eat whatever meal they cooked that day.
GIVING BACK
Prior to the Christmas break, the students invited representatives from five organizations to the school to present them with soup bags.
“A lot of people in Nova Scotia go hungry on a daily basis. It’s sadly a fact of life, and we have been trying, with this program, to teach them how to share the wealth,” said Padula.
The day before the presentation, the young chefs-in-the-making spent about an hour and a half making enough soup bags to feed 500 people.
Kim Siler, the Schools Plus community outreach worker involved with the program, said it was heartwarming to see how the students are not only giving back to the community but how much they’re growing and learning in the process.
“I think the important thing is when kids do things for others, like giving back to the community, that actually builds their self-esteem and their self-worth,” said Siler.
She likened the lessons the kids are learning to the old adage of giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish. One will feed the man for a day, the other will feed him for a lifetime.
“I really see that as we're giving them the skills at a very young age to be able to do that. And eating together is really important.”
Siler said the most exciting aspect of the program for her is watching students who are traditionally quiet take on leadership roles or speak up.
“So they've not only been learning the skills but learning how to communicate and how to work with each other and support each other. So it's been kind of cool,” she said.
“We're watching these kids grow.”
In the spring, the local team with the most points will advance to the provincial competition in Halifax. From there, one team will be selected to travel to Quebec to compete at a national level.
GO ONLINE
To learn more about the kitchen brigade program, visit: https://www.tableedeschefs.org/en/programs/educate/kitchen-brigades/
