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Iron Chef Style Cook-off

We have the Grade 7 class cooking at our 8th annual Iron Chef: St. Edmund’s! If you haven’t heard of Iron Chef yet, it is a TV series that originated in Japan. A chef would challenge one of the Iron Chefs with an expertise in a single cooking style (Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French), then the secret theme ingredient is revealed by the host of the show. The chefs only have one hour to make their dishes, which they would cook in front of a big audience in a venue called Kitchen Stadium. The dishes are then presented to a panel of selected judges to determine whether the challenger chef or the Iron Chef’s cooking would “reign supreme”. Read more below about our fascinating health and nutrition unit. The students study a health and nutrition unit, focusing on the real science behind food. We study calories, fats, carbohydrates, protein, and the way that our bodies process food. Moreover, we also take a closer look at maintaining a healthy, balanced diet. The great educational benefits of this unit are practical work skills, such as teamwork, creative thinking and design, developing good nutritional habits, meeting multi-level expectations, researching, website development, video editing, leadership, food safety and preparation. Some of the fun activities of the health and nutrition unit incorporate a blind taste challenge and mini-cooking challenges. This year, students have been challenged to prepare different styles of eggs in their first challenge, and then bruschetta for the second challenge! Also, students work on recipe building, keeping to the theme of the group. Each group has a key ingredient and cooking style they must follow. The seven groups are cheese, tropical fruit, citrus, potato, wheat, lemon and tofu. The unit includes watching cooking videos that are similar to some of the popular shows on The Food Network for some cooking inspiration. Students also learn dining room design, in order to better present their food. The health and nutrition unit finishes with a live cooking event at the school, which we call Iron Chef: St. Edmunds! Last year, local “foodie” blogger Richard Wolak, of Vancouver Foodster attended. Richard had many great things to mention on Twitter about last year’s dining experiences, from the elegant plating and dining room designs, to the knowledgeable and efficient service, not to mention the taste!

Have a look at the website below, it’s something for your child to look forward to in Grade 7! You’ll find videos, recipes, group point standings, food science information, and criteria for the projects in the unit. Iron Chef: St.Edmund’s website: https://sites.google.com/a/stedmunds.ca/st-ed-s-iron-chef-2014/