Food Technology and Hospitality

The Food Technology department welcomed Miss Andie Eves and Whaea Kelly Matrix at the beginning of this year. They have joined Whaea Ngaire Ranapia in teaching Hospitality and Food Technology to all of the five Whakatāne High School year groups. This year, Food Technology encompassed the science behind food products and packaging as well as social issues surrounding sustainably sourced ingredients, food design, nutrition, recipe development, personal hygiene, and food safety issues. As the year has progressed, we have seen some thoughtful and impactful solutions from brilliant young minds in regards to food scarcity issues and what can be done about food security to help today’s akonga learn and grow and nurture tomorrow’s tamariki.

- Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi.

Cooking is as popular as ever and we have some budding chefs amongst our akonga. Our kitchen classroom has been running non stop as akonga have learnt how to prepare and cook food from different cultures across the world as well as integrate foraged native foods from our wider community into their dishes. We hope the junior kura have all enjoyed being a part of designing their own recipes and having creative freedom with their practical assessments. They were pushed to think outside the box with many design elements and kitchen based skill sets which came together to produce an edible end product. Seniors have worked hard to produce beautiful cakes, hot finger foods, and meat and vegetable cuts which have led them to create complete gourmet meals. The Level Two Hospitality classes have immersed themselves in coffee training this year and have been busy honing their skills perfecting caffé crema and making the silkiest frothed milk. Four students from Level Three Hospitality, Pfeifer McIntyre, Matthew Robison, Ben Akroyd and Meadow Williams, competed as two teams in the Waikato Culinary Fare in June and both teams came away with bronze awards in Mystery Box Challenges. He Hākari o Te Kōanga, our restaurant event, which was prepared and cooked by the Level Three Hospitality class, was a massive success. Cooking a four course degustation menu for over 75 guests was not something that the students thought they could achieve when the challenge was presented to them early on in the year. Since then, the students have gained skills in making pasta, breaking down and cooking whole cuts of meat and preparing vegetables in all sorts of new and exciting ways. Practice and new found expertise in the culinary arts saw the students impress their parents, teachers and wider community with delicious and beautifully presented dishes that included native flora like horopito, kawakawa and mānuka.

Miss Eves introduced a competition this year with the Level Three Hospitality class that saw the winners dine in one of New Zealand’s premier luxury lodges, The Farm at Cape Kidnappers. The students were able to collect points all year for all sorts of learnt skills, participation in class, extracurricular catering, master classes, spontaneous mystery box cook offs and there was even an open category specifically for bribery which was not utilised by the students nearly enough. We were lucky to be able to take five students to enjoy a three course lunch above the cliffs overlooking Hawkes Bay. “Wow” and “Fancy” were the words of the day as the students “mmmmmmed” their way through the different courses. After lunch, a tour of the amenities provided wide eyes and more “insanes” than you can shake a whisk at. Seeing the level of service and creativity in food that is on our doorstep has hopefully inspired the next generation of hospitality professionals from Whakatāne. Looking at you, Class of 2022.

GET AMONGST IT!