CMU Tech culinary program feeds campus and community, donates meals to Salvation Army
CMU Tech culinary arts students got a taste of real-world food service, preparing and serving a Thanksgiving feast while learning what it takes to cook at commercial scale.
CMU Tech’s Culinary Arts department hosted their annual Turkey Feast on Thursday, feeding hundreds of students, staff, faculty and community members. The students started preparing days in advance. The culinary and bakery students worked together to serve a full Thanksgiving meal including: turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, pie and more. The bakery and pastry students made over 100 pies and 2,000 dinner rolls.
Steve Gould is the technical instructor of baking and pastry. He says hosting the Turkey Feast gives students real-world experience.
“It’s a very good educational moment for them. Like they think, ‘oh, we got to do 2,000 rolls.’ Yeah, 2,000 rolls. That’s how it’s going to be when you’re out in the industry.”
Axel Nestingen started culinary school this year. She is working toward a certification in culinary bakeshop production and a bachelor’s degree in business. Preparing enough food to serve the entire campus helped her learn what it’s like to work in fast paced environment.
“I really like that it’s giving me a look into actually running a bakery. We’re doing a bunch of different things at once, and not everyone’s doing the same thing,” Nestingen said. “Sometimes in class were all just doing the same thing. But with this one, each person’s working on something different, and it just is a lot more fast paced and a lot more accurate to what it’s actually like working in a bakery.”
Serving at the technical college specifically gave students of all trades and ages a reason to come together.
“I believe, it’s special because it’s peer to peer. It’s a smaller campus over here. They all know each other,” Gould said. “We have some of our concurrent high school students as well that are coming through the line.”
The shared experience of Thanksgiving dinner gave a sense of community. It’s one way for culinary and bakery students to show off their hard work and skills they learn in the classroom.
“I really like it because, it’s just really nice getting compliments on all the food we make and stuff, because sometimes you can have a rough day in the kitchen and things might not turn out the way you want,” Nestingen said. “So being able to have other people try and say ‘this is really good’ and just get that feedback really helps us improve.”
The future baker said the feeling of accomplishment after a successful event makes it worth the stressful preparation.
“We’ve gotten a ton of compliments. So that’s really nice since we put so much time and effort into it,” she said.
In addition to serving the CMU Tech campus, the chefs are also cooking up something bigger to give back to the community. They make food to donate to the Salvation Army for their feast on Thanksgiving Day.
“It feels good doing that. I always like to say it feels a lot better cooking for people that need the food. And it’s much more satisfying,” Gould said. “These people really need the food. So you put the love into it.”
It’s important to the chef that his students serve the community and give everyone a chance to enjoy the holidays. A skill he says will make them more mindful of who they are serving and the impact they are making.
“[The people at the Salvation Army’s dinner are] really going to appreciate that roll that you made or that turkey that you made or those pies that you made. They’re really going to appreciate that. And I try to instill that in my students,” he said. “This is why we do this. We feed people.”
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Written by CMU Student Wylee Mitchell
Dining and Cooking