Students slice, dice for culinary competition
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HAMMOND — Consider sitting down to this meal: an appetizer of battered and fried asparagus, topped with lump crabmeat; lamb; creamy polenta topped with Southern-style spinach; and a crème brulee and French toast dessert, topped with hand-whipped cream.
That’s the meal four Hammond High seniors whipped up April 16, in one hour, using two gas burners — the only cooking appliances students Ashley Geiser, Nicole Wagoner, Patrick Loyd and Jacob Carson will have to work with Friday at the National ProStart Invitational culinary competition in San Diego, Calif. “We have an hour to cook a three-course meal,” Loyd said.
As practice, the students have prepared the meal — that won them the state ProStart award in February — close to 40 times, ProStart teacher Patti Johnson said.
“It’s unique. It’s not your common dishes you cook every day. It’s not repetitive … it keeps improving,” Carson said.
ProStart is a program of the National Restaurant Association and, in Louisiana, is run by the Louisiana Restaurant Association.
The ProStart classes, which have been offered at Hammond High for six years, give students interested in the food industry a distinct advantage, Johnson said.
ProStart students who become certified through the program — by completing their coursework; working 400 hours in a restaurant over two years; and passing two exams of the National Restaurant Association — earn six hours of credit at universities and culinary schools, Johnson said.
ProStart students who go to work in restaurants after high school “can earn more money because they move up so quickly, because they know so much,” she said.
Loyd, Wagoner and Carson are all interested in working in the restaurant industry one day, they said.
Johnson and the Hammond High team will prepare all original recipes, prepared in collaboration with the students’ mentor chefs — restaurateurs and business partners, Phil O’Donald of O’Donald’s in Ponchatoula, and Larry Johnson of Pier One-Twelve in Hammond, who also is Patti Johnson’s son.
The students don’t use recipe cards, but instead, have memorized the recipes.
“We’ll give it our best shot,” Wagoner said.
The top five winning teams take home impressive scholarships, Johnson said.
The results will be announced Sunday, she added.
With expert efficiency, the students turned out their award-winning meal once again, in just under one hour.
With five minutes to spare, the meal for two was finished and attractively plated.
The ProStart class invites guests to enjoy the meals they cook.
On this day, the guest was Jeanne Bourgeois, director of education for the Louisiana Restaurant Association, based in Metairie.
“It’s an excellent meal,” Bourgeois pronounced.
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