Who remembers our hit summer culinary program Little Chopped!? For those who do not, Little Chopped was a program that was ran by our Golfview site this past summer. The program was a hit. Now a new culinary program has made its way to the Teen Center thanks to our staff members Jesus and Kayla!
So why a culinary program? How does cooking benefit our members? You might be surprised to learn that cooking is not only an important life skill, but also an art. It also helps with cognitive development. It’s also a great way to bring friends and family together!
These days less people are learning how to cook healthy meals and instead are turning to frozen meals that are filled with nitrates and preservatives. Learning culinary skills teaches members about what actually goes into their food and what they need to live a healthier lifestyle. They become less likely to pick up that fast food meal that usually contains fillers and tons of fat. It is also a great way for kids to learn hygiene and cleanliness. Teaching them to wash their hands before prepping food and cleaning up after themselves when they are done will help them in other aspects of their lives when it comes to basic life skills.
Not many people realize that there are major cognitive development benefits to learning how to cook, especially at a young age. Cooking forces you to think and learn math and science skills such as step by step directions. Math is used in cooking through measurements and counting. It also helps in a scientific way. How? Well it is quite simple really. Cooking really is a science in it’s own way. You learn how to cook with different temperatures with different foods. Kids learn that different foods will burn if you cook it too long. Or if you put too much yeast in a loaf of bread then you can expect your small loaf to become quite large. Kind of similar to when you put too much of that one solution in your beaker in chemistry and then boom! Or when you put too much liquid in your volcano for the science fair and suddenly you have a pond of some weird sticky volcanic solution all over the gym floor! Cooking helps kids understand different mixtures, what does and does not taste good when paired with each other, or how too much of something can ruin your dish. Our members will be learning the importance of recipes and why it is a good idea to follow them.
Cooking is also a great way for our ESL members to learn english in a different way. How you ask? Recipes! You have to read recipes. By learning to read recipes you are developing your reading as well as language skills.
Have you ever thought about cooking as an art form? Well today cooking is considered an art. That’s why it is called the culinary arts. Meals are becoming more and more creative. Something as simple as pizza is now being transformed into something that is more “pleasing to the eye.” Young generations are taking old dishes and remaking them into something bigger and in some cases even better. Cooking allows people to create something out of nothing. Our member Ray said, “I love having the opportunity of making something new. I can’t wait to learn how to make soup!” Miguel said, “I love making food. My favorite part is tasting my creation to see how it came out.” Food can be an art and we at the BGCDT are excited to teach our members this new way of looking at food.
Overall cooking is a major part of everyday life. We can’t wait to teach our members just how fun and important it is. We hope we will inspire you to cook a little more at home with your family as well through our Pinterest! Every week we will be posting a new recipe! Just click the click below to check out our current recipes! Now go on and get cooking!
*Check out all of the recipes and photos from the Culinary program on our Pintrest acount here!
(pintrest.com/bgcdt)
