Forget the Soup Cans; Stir That Bechamel

Twenty-three years ago, Michelle Krier Bukowski learned in a home economics class how to make tuna casserole with a can of cream of mushroom soup and a tin of tuna.

Now, in the same South Pasadena classroom, the trained chef teaches high school students how to make penne with bechamel, a white sauce, and Gruyere cheese. Make no mistake: Bukowski’s class is culinary arts, and it represents the changing face of what used to be called home economics.

Her students are not learning to cook for themselves or their families; they are developing the skills to become serious restaurateurs.

“It’s about creating things from scratch, rather than putting together store-bought things. It’s about learning the whys and the hows,” Bukowski said.

Home economics began in California schools in the 1920s as a program for future homemakers. It is adapting today, as interest in food-related careers packs professional culinary schools with students and extends down to the high school level.

“Now we’re thinking about how to send kids into the industry and let them know” that there are opportunities after high school, said Debbie Greenwood, who started teaching home economics 28 years ago in the Glendale Unified School District.

Five years ago, Greenwood began Cafe Bistro, a daily professional-level culinary class in the high school’s Regional Occupation Program. Teachers and students at Glendale High School flock to the weekly $5 gourmet lunches served by the Cafe Bistro class.

“The other day we learned to tourne vegetables, slicing potatoes into cute little footballs. That’s not something a home cook would do,” she said.

Greenwood approves no more than 30 students for each Cafe Bistro class to keep it manageable and to filter out those who don’t have the skill or maturity for a professional-level class.

“If we had a room and another teacher, we could run five more sections,” she said.

At South Pasadena High School, Caitlin Bryant, 17, organized a popular petition drive last year to ask for a culinary class.

In response, the school district hired Bukowski.

“I love the class. My parents love the class,” Caitlin said as she checked on gingerbread one recent Thursday afternoon at school. “They know it’s what I really want to do. It’s not the way so many high schools are so pro-academics and not focusing on what students want to do.”

Culinary arts classes are popular also because they are more gender-neutral than old-style food classes. “I never took a home ec class before,” said Ben Herrera, a 16-year-old South Pasadena High student. “Before, when it was offered in middle school, it was kind of a girlie thing.”

Now Herrera, who is one of four boys among Bukowski’s 26 students, praised the class for instilling “independence and self-reliance.”

Andre Averseng, who runs Dining with Andre, a French restaurant in South Pasadena, hired Ashley Atwood, one of Bukowski’s students, in November as part of South Pasadena High’s occupation-matching program. “Taking the class has definitely helped,” Averseng said. “I wanted her to put something in a mold for me. It was a quiche. I asked her, ‘Have you made a quiche before?’ and she said, ‘Yes, we did it the other day.’ Great.”

For the culinary program at Glendale High, the state awarded Greenwood $100,000 last summer to start an industry certification program approved by the National Restaurant Assn. and to buy equipment for it.

In the ProStart program, students follow a curriculum developed by the association.

After passing a national test, students receive a certificate that gives them credentials in their search for restaurant work or application to culinary school.

Glendale High joins 10 other schools in Los Angeles County in using the ProStart curriculum. Becky Thomas, an association spokeswoman, said that since 1999, interest in the group’s high school industry certification program has really picked up. In April 2000, 1,800 California high school students participated in ProStart. In January, association officials counted 3,496.

Though demand is high, the cost of a culinary arts program can be prohibitive. South Pasadena was able to begin its class this year only through the state-funded Regional Occupation Program.

Two years ago, the district cut food classes from its high school curriculum as it was planning new buildings.

Given the choice between kitchens and traditional classrooms, school officials chose the latter.

“Our foods classes were basic nutrition: four food groups, little cooking types of things. There was no emphasis on the food industry. Thus, in a microwave world, enrollments drifted away from the foods classes,” Supt. Michael Hendricks said.

South Pasadena now spends $1,000 a semester on food for Bukowski’s class, economizing by having her use the home arts classroom at a middle school two blocks away. Students walk from the high school to attend.

Bukowski appreciates the space of six U-shaped kitchens, although she said it is frustrating to try to teach with ovens whose temperature knobs do not match the thermometers inside. She lends students her knives and plans to bring in her Christmas present, a blowtorch, for projects such as the dessert custard creme brulee.

And when she surveyed the class the other day for suggestions for food projects, many asked to cook steak.

Bukowski laughed. She said that, even when she paid to take classes at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, the most expensive meat she cooked was pork.

In South Pasadena, she said, “We’ll stick to poultry. Or eggs. We got a lot out of eggs.”