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The menu began with lobster in a delicate lemon grass broth. Perfection. The main course was a grilled free-range veal chop with mushroom ragout served over white truffle whipped potatoes. To die for. The dessert: a classic crème brulee, expertly prepared with the right crunch on top and smooth, cool cream beneath. In short, the lunch was a triumph. As the Culinary Guild began to push their chairs back it was hard to imagine that they had just eaten in a classroom at Hermitage High School and their chefs were 17 years old.
The program is Culinary Arts and the school is Hermitage Technical Center, an integral part of Henrico County Public Schools. Students from throughout the County come here for programs as diverse as Nursing, Auto Mechanics, and Cosmetology. Most spend part of their academic day at one of the County’s eight comprehensive high schools and then come to the Technical Center for the other part of their day.
Enrollment in the Culinary Education program is highly selective. More than 100 students apply each year to be admitted into the program. Of those 100, twenty will be selected based on their future goals, work ethic, attendance, and academic performance. Chef/Instructor Winslow Goodier said, “We want students who are serious about a career in restaurant work, not just students who want to know how to cook. It’s important that we know they will stick with the program and be able to put in the work required to be successful, whether they go on to work in a restaurant or go to culinary school.”
Chef Goodier’s goal for the program is simple. “Give the students as few surprises as possible when they go to college or to work in restaurants. I teach them basic techniques, how it should be done, so that they can adapt it however they want or need to when they are working with another chef.”
Students learn these basic techniques over a two-year course of study. In the first year the twenty students learn knife skills, ingredients, spices, vegetables and starches. They learn to create basic stocks, prepare soups, and cook the entire range of breakfast foods. In the final marking period they learn the basics of baking. During the second year of the program students learn about the different kinds of meats, how to properly debone, filet, or butcher a cut of meat, what to save for stock, and different methods of preparation. They even learn how to prepare wild game. In the final semester of the second year, students go to CO-Op work at a local restaurant four days a week and class one day a week. This ensures that students have the minimum six months of practical kitchen experience that most culinary schools require of their entering students.
Some of the students complete their CO-Op work at restaurants where they are already employed. Others find placements at some of the finest restaurants in the Richmond area, among them Acacia, Hondo’s, La Petite France, and the Country Club of Virginia. “If a student shows a lot of promise I try to place them with good people in a good restaurant where they will learn a lot,” says Chef Goodier. On average, students make between $8 and $11 per hour during their CO-Op work, and many continue to work at the restaurant after their school work is complete.
Most of the students who complete the two-year Culinary Arts program at Hermitage Tech are committed to a career as chefs and restaurateurs. Eighty-five percent of Goodier’s students go on to culinary school, some to the Culinary Institute of America, some to Johnson and Wales University.
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