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Oct 20, 2006

Experts teach students art of cooking

Story PictureWe usually see chefs behind the stove, not necessarily around a table or even in a classroom, but this week that’s where News Five’s Kendra Griffith found them.

Chef Mark Ainsworth, Course Facilitator
?We sit down in the morning for theory, then we get in the kitchen, prepare meals and then we critique the food at the end of the day before we go home.?

Kendra Griffith, Reporting
And after a morning of hard work we found these seventeen chefs enjoying the fruits of the labour.

The cooks are participating in a six-day Caribbean Culinary Course sponsored by the Belize Tourism Board. Chef Mark Ainsworth, a professor at the Culinary Institute of America, is facilitating.

Chef Mark Ainsworth
?We learn about healthy cuisine, nutritional cuisine, food presentation, and cooking methods, everything from braising to sautéing to poaching. Today we talked about healthy cuisine and I think that that was a real eye opener for a lot of people, really understanding exactly what we should eat and how many calories and how many of those calories should be from fats, carbohydrates and proteins. And so for a chef I think that that?s an important thing to understand because they have to feed their customers as well as themselves.?

For Lamanai Outpost Lodge chef, Elizabeth Palacio, the course has increased her knowledge as well as her appreciation for certain vegetables.

Elizabeth Palacio, Lamanai Outpost Lodge
?I learn about vegetarian cuisine a lot. I learn about presentation of foods and what should be on plates and shouldn?t go with another meal and stuff like that.?

Kendra Griffith
?You said that you didn?t eat everything what is your favourite new thing that you learnt to eat??

Elizabeth Palacio
?I ate spinach, I ate a lot of okras and cassava that I never tasted in my life. I finally tasted cassava.?

Kendra Griffith
?Why haven?t? you eaten cassava as yet??

Elizabeth Palacio
?Because I didn?t really know how to cook it.?

Kendra Griffith
?So how can one cook cassava??

Elizabeth Palacio
?We made a cassava fritters and it was good with a mustard sauce.?

Kendra Griffith
?Now you are planning to take these new things that you have learnt and incorporate them into you menu at the Lamanai??

Elizabeth Palacio
?Yes I would do that.?

And if you?re not a fan of okra, workshop participant Nicole Hughes, has a take on the much maligned veg that just might convince you to put it on your plate.

Nicole Hughes, Caterer
?If you?re a person that doesn?t really like okra, that?s one of the most ideal ways to do it, deep fry it. It?s in a homemade cornmeal batter, so it has a little sweetish taste. And what?s inside the okra is sautéed shrimp and bacon and has diced carrots and scallions, really good stuff and the sweet and sour sauce served with it is in a roasted bell pepper, so everything on that plate is edible.?

According to the B.T.B., the purpose of course is to improve the standards of restaurateurs in the tourism industry.

Bernard Blades, Assistant Facilitator
?When these international?tourists come into our country and to our restaurants they want to see the Belizeans in more management areas and be more professional chefs, so that?s what this course is trying to do, take away the international chefs and bring in our local chefs.?

Kendra Griffith
?How important is it for even though you are a chef for you to continue improving your skills??

Chef Mark Ainsworth
?Well I hope I am always am doing that and so it?s a lifelong education really. It takes forever. There?s always new trends to learn and new things to learn, so I don?t think it ever stops for any of us really.?

At the end of the training, each participant will receive a certificate from the Culinary Institute of America.

Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.

The Caribbean Culinary Course ends on Saturday. The seminar is being held at the Centre for Employment Training on St. Thomas Street.


Viewers please note: This Internet newscast is a verbatim transcript of our evening television newscast. Where speakers use Kriol, we attempt to faithfully reproduce the quotes using a standard spelling system.

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