Student Chefs Get Rave Reviews for Their Soup Kitchen Haute Cuisine

Graduates of the prestigious culinary school at Johnson & Wales University can count on jobs as chefs in some of the finest restaurants, serving some of the country’s most influential people.

But as students, when they’re not learning about nouvelle cuisine, they can be found whipping up meals for a very different clientele--one that would not make it past the front door at many fancy establishments.

Johnson & Wales’ 640 culinary students are required to work at soup kitchens throughout Providence, preparing and serving food for the city’s poorest residents.

Even for senior Vincent Gaikens of Cleveland, a veteran of the community service program who readies new students for the experience, some days are difficult.

He recalls an unsettling scene on a recent rainy morning: A soaked and famished 8-year-old girl, all alone, wandered into the Amos House soup kitchen for breakfast.

“First I wondered why she wasn’t in school,” Gaikens says. “But you have to realize that if a kid is hungry, their priority is to get something to eat, not getting to school. It’s pretty tough to see, especially seeing her alone.”

Culinary students are required to perform 24 hours of community service a year. This year, that will total 15,360 hours at Amos House, Travelers Aid Society of Rhode Island, St. Charles Church’s soup kitchen and the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.

“Some of the students really don’t want to do the community service when they first come in--I really didn’t either,” Gaikens admits. “But now I can say it’s been the most rewarding of everywhere I’ve worked.”

Community service became part of Johnson & Wales’ curriculum in 1993, when it was incorporated into the leadership studies program at the university’s school of arts and sciences.

The program expanded in 1994 to include the culinary school and this year has grown to encompass every department.

All first-year students must complete course work in community service to graduate. The programs vary, but all require at least 10 hours of volunteer work.

“What we do goes above and beyond helping the homeless and the hungry,” says social sciences Professor Judith Turchetta. “It spreads to all kinds of groups. There’s a lot more to this than getting class requirements. It changes lives.”

Students can be found working at the Westminster Senior Center, Hasbro Children’s Hospital, the YMCA, the American Lung Assn. and scores of other agencies throughout the city.

Although the most important aspect of community service is getting people fed, it’s only the beginning. Programs that teach everything from English as a second language to computers are geared toward breaking the cycle of poverty.

“We want people to move beyond the Band-Aid part and toward real change,” says Sean Hubbard, a graduate student from Chelmsford, Mass., who, like Gaikens, trains students in community service. “And we hope students will take what they’ve learned into the business world.”

Educators hope a student who goes on to become a chef, for example, will donate leftover food or his or her time to a local soup kitchen. And on a more basic level, they hope it will make students more sympathetic.

“We want to show them that no matter what you do for a living or where you work, you can and should help out in your community,” says Susan Connery, director of the Alan Shawn Feinstein Community Center.

“It helps break down stereotypes,” Turchetta says. “Many of the students coming in don’t have much sympathy for other people. They think homeless people don’t want to work, that people are lazy.

“But then they’ll see entire families whose house burned down in a shelter, and they start to realize it just as easily could be them.”

Soup kitchens like Amos House in South Providence are busiest toward the end of the month, when monthly public assistance checks run out. Harried students and volunteers serve meals to up to 1,000 people a day.

Most of the food is donated, so the aspiring chefs must work with what’s available--often canned food and leftovers from local restaurants.

“It’s a big difference from the culinary labs, where we have the best-quality meats and foods to work with,” Gaikens says. “Sometimes it’s a challenge.”

Even so, the food preparation is the easy part, students say. The hardest part is staying positive in the midst of the poverty, mental illness, loneliness, substance abuse and personal tragedies that plague those who turn to Amos House for sustenance.

“We tell them everything,” Gaikens says of new students. “It’s pretty intense--there are fights, conflicts, so we have to get them mentally prepared.”

On a recent day, the Amos House kitchen bustled in organized chaos as students prepared the day’s lunch: stir-fried beef with mushrooms and onions, sauteed vegetables and seasoned rice. The scents mixed to create an aroma more reminiscent of a five-star restaurant than a soup kitchen.

Chris Diel and his lunch companion, who identified himself as Bob, gave rave reviews to the fare.

“The food here is really great,” says Diel, who has been coming to Amos House for the three months he has been living in a nearby homeless shelter. “To me, it’s the seasoning that does it. The other places have kind of bland food, but these kids are training to be master chefs so you know it’s always going to be good.”

Bob, however, had a complaint.

“They’ve got to do something about the coffee--it’ll put hair on your chest,” he says.

“But everything else is really good. Really sticks to your ribs.”