Many people will enter in college using a standard meal plan,
or what I should say is that a majority of the students will now have limited
access to food. When a typical college student enters in a dormitory, usually
you would see the typical foods eaten within the rooms. Snacks ranging from
granola bars, candy bars, trail mixes, jerky, cereal, cookies, crackers, Ramen
noodles, and much more non-perishable items. Often times you would have a quick
store for students to go to while also buying food, snacks, and drinks. Now
many students who come to college aren’t always used to cooking for themselves.
In other words, meals that can either be simple and creative, or perhaps
cooking in general so it helps them in the real world for future sake. There
are also those who don’t have the necessary skills to cook because they were
not always taught by their parents, so then they would have to follow step by
step package instruction methods, or random internet recipes in which sometimes
it never turns out the way it should.
To me cooking is a vital aspect of living. What are ways we
can promote cooking clubs, courses, or even cooking competitions that is
college friendly oriented? How can we give and promote student creativity
through cooking, or perhaps teach the students different methods of cooking.
How can we incorporate the basics of cooking such as how to boil water, how to
CORRECTLY scramble an egg, or even tell the difference between All-purpose
flour and self-rising flour, baking powder and baking soda, and many basic
seasonings? Here’s what I wrote in terms of thinking maybe you can benefit
from.
Clubs
Where I come from, our college doesn’t have a culinary
department on campus, so for some students, bakery and food science is the way
to go. We also have a baking club in which you may pick freshly baked goods
every Wednesday, and also learn how to bake. Perhaps as a student, you can
start your own cooking/culinary club. Hire some of the best local people to
train, sponsor, and advise you through it all. Perhaps even start a club so
that YOU are doing the teaching and training to younger students. Here’s
another thing about what you can do in clubs…Take trips to write reviews at
local restaurants. Create easy college student cookbooks that can be used in
dorms, or perhaps help assist the local community with cooking/catering. Many
students will become creative and make their own business. Speaking of
business, I know it all sounds big, but start small and create your own cooking
business. Doesn’t have to be expensive, huge amounts of foods, but perhaps
cookies and cakes would do.
Competitions
I was a huge fan of Iron chef as a kid. Not the Iron Chef
you know today (Iron Chef America), but the ORIGINAL Japanese Iron Chef show.
Now perhaps that television show was the foundation on cooking competitions
that we know and see today on television. One of my biggest dreams is to see a
cooking competition as a sport within the collegiate level. Each university
will have a giant cooking arena where it represents that school. Like many
sports competitions, a few are selected from the school to compete with. As
much as I hate how many chefs are shot down when it comes to CREATING a dish, I
do think maybe it’s time for young Culinary/aspiring chefs who are students get
some sort of a competition drilled within them that way it teaches time
management skills, creativity, and a way of learning how to cook. Even though it all seems huge, it can start
as small as creating a small outside “vendor” competition at your local student
union, open house, or any other campus event. Whatever competition happens, the
key is to create a fun, learning experience for students.
Media presentations
When I was in Leavenworth, Kids A Cookin’ was a family based
show that would come on basic cable through local television stations. This
show was generated towards a younger audience ranging from ages 5 and up.
Hosted by Karen Arnold, she guides children step by step to prepare
nutritional, delicious recipes that parents can also do in their own home. The
purpose of this show was not only to make something simple, but to share and
teach ways of cooking with your kids.
Premiering March 31st on MTV will be a new
cooking reality show aimed for college students. Untrained and inexperience
chefs will be able to live with each other, cook, and compete for an
apprenticeship with some of the world’s best chefs. This is similar to
America’s Worst cooks combined with Chopped, Hell’s Kitchen, and The Real World
all mixed into one. Where exactly am I
going at with this? Basically, as a college student, you don’t always have to go
adventure off and audition to be on a show to learn how to cook, you can
actually learn and benefit from them. Here’s another thing, you can go ahead
and use the tools to not only learn, but to create many delicious original
dishes prepared by you through YouTube.
Many students would be willing to start out independent and soon will
build the reputation. There are some things on YouTube in which I thought was
great for young people to get involved with cooking just by watching videos,
and become enlightened with new ideas as well. Though cook books give an
explanation, and you may not have the exotic ingredients like celebrity chefs
do, YouTube will always provide you with any video ranging of levelness, basic
ingredients, reviews, and feed back to what is great, and what is not.
So get up, get out, and get cracking on what you want to
cook, how to be creative, and enjoy yourself so that way when you have a family
of your own, you’re not always stuck on going out to eat. Oh which also reminds
me, cooking will save a whole lot of money by not going out to eat almost every
night. For those who like to focus on their health and dieting, you can be
creative with flavor. In fact, it’s a lot healthier that you cook from your
apartment, dorm, or Greek house using fresh ingredients.
Happy Creative Cooking!!!
Twitter/Instagram: @RonaldAtkinson9
