Kenwood Culinary Students Creating Food Truck Menus

There’s always a lot cooking in Chef G’s Café 210. You can often catch the delicious smells drifting down the hallway or a student walking by proudly with their well crafted meal or dessert creation.

Some of those food dishes making their way down Kenwood’s halls could be from the Food Pre-Professional 2 class. Students are creating their own food truck menus in class and are preparing foods from all around the world.

These menus allow the students full creativity on what is on their menu. “Food trucks are a trending business model right now and gives kids the ability to be creative with a trendy food concept,” shares Chef G, Kenwood’s culinary teacher. They research foods from around the world and base their menus off of it.

Students are loving this authentic way to explore the culinary business. “We did a South Asian cuisine, so the thought was to do thai… it seemed like a fun way to introduce the flavors,” shares Kenwood junior that’s working with Chef G for the second time. Last year he and his peers took the Foods I class virtually so the hands on experience in the kitchen has been a welcome change.

Students aren’t only cooking the food, but are also taking into account the marketing and advertising of the food “We’re marketing it and seeing what other people think of the intended price of it.,” shared Kenwood culinary student.

Chef G’s Food Pre-Professional 2 course is preparing students to not only cook food, but to manage a food business. To help students make the best choices for their food truck menu students are asking staff and others in the school building to sample their dishes. Chef G shares,  “As part of their experience students have to conduct market research on their products to analyze the viability of their dish and make changes accordingly.” Anyone who samples one of their dishes are asked to complete a survey form to “answer three questions with brutal but kind honesty as no one can improve a skill if they’re always told it’s wonderful,” adds Chef G.

For anyone that loves to cook or dreams of having their own food truck or food business one day, Chef G’s Food Pre-Professional 2 class can get you started to work in the food industry. And who knows, maybe these students will create their own food trucks one day.