EAT Magazine March_April 2017_ISSUU_Layout 1 2/28/17 1:37 PM Page 54
These young cooks from Spectrum Community School’s Culinary Arts Program already know that good food is in their future. R E B E CCA W E L L M A N
(L to R) Connor Roos , Kaelee Derosz, Fynn Bosomworth
The Kids Are Alright BY JILL VAN GYN
D
id you know for certain what you wanted to be when you grew up? At the ripe old age of 15 or 16, were you throwing everything you had into one specific career direction? I will speak for myself here and say that my options were pilot, architect, interior designer or journalist. Was I throwing myself into cultivating any of these career paths? No, I was not. I was dabbling in various forms (minus the flying of planes) by creating crude drawings or writings, getting bored, then watching some Saved By the Bell or heading to the mall, hoping to hell it was all going to work out. The kids in Spectrum School’s Culinary Arts Program are getting knee-deep in what it means to run a full-scale food operation. When I walked into the school cafeteria kitchen, a massive space with equipment fit for running a busy restaurant, the heat was on. The teenagers took little notice of me as they focused wholeheartedly on the tasks at hand. Breakfast had already been pumped out— an appetizing smoked salmon benny—and freshly baked goodies remained in their bakery baskets ready for purchase as snacks throughout the day. On this day, just before the holidays kicked in, the kids were getting ready to offer a full tea service to a First Nations Elders group. 54
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They had prepared sweet and savory bannock, delicate tarts and cookies, confections, scones and dainty tea sandwiches. As the students rushed back and forth with fervent determination, I noticed a clock with a note underneath it that read, “Always move with a sense of urgency.” Good advice.
well-trained people and yet there are no undergrad degrees that focus on the culinary arts […] so raising the level of education and training has to be emphasized. On the other end, lots of restaurants have moved to being really small businesses and they just can’t afford to hire really well-qualified staff.”
Chef Lauri Humeniuk, a Red Seal chef who holds a master’s degree in education, runs the Spectrum kitchen on Burnside Road with total efficiency. Baking is pulled from the ovens in the early hours of the morning, breakfast dishes are ready to go and stocks, sauces, meats and accompaniments are already in the preparation phases. The goal here is employability—getting these young people ready for a career in the culinary industry. With complaints popping up all over Victoria about the lack of good cooks in the city, Spectrum is priming its students to come out of the classroom and get into the kitchens, fully prepared and ready to work. Humeniuk emphasizes their discipline as a trade. She is grooming the students for careers as well-trained bakers, cooks and butchers. However, she also understands the industry is facing some serious challenges and hopes her students’ early training will give them an edge. “Restaurants are screaming for
Humeniuk expresses some of the concerns that have been plaguing the restaurant industry for years now. Today, more than ever, it’s getting harder to retain qualified kitchen staff in the ranks below chef and sous-chef. Sprawling restaurants that seat 50-plus people, resplendent with intricate bar services, massive kitchen teams and dedicated sommeliers are giving way to smaller, lower-cost concept restaurants or cottage industries such as meal delivery, pop-ups, artisan food products and shared-use food spaces. These small industries require qualified and well-trained individuals, but soaring rents, minimum wage standards and consumer expectations (that “low-cost concept” means cheap food) are making it a challenge for these small business to succeed. On the flipside of the conversation, the expectations of young chefs entering the industry must also be tempered.