The Wauwatosa West Prostart Program held tryouts for their 2024-2025 season on Thursday, October 17th in the Culinary Arts room after school.
“I love Prostart, the kids have fun in a competitive competition doing what they love, it warms my heart,” said Culinary Arts teacher Carly Joseph.
At the try outs, each student prepared their own signature dish and had 60 minutes to mise en place, cook and/or bake, plate, and garnish their dish. Joseph and other competition team members tasted and scored each dish using a rubric. The top dishes by score were chosen to be on the official culinary team.
“My signature dish I’ll be cooking is spring rolls. It is a French dish with lots of fresh ingredients, but it is the peanut sauce that brings all of the ingredients together,” said freshman Kabao Lor. Students were required to have participated in the Wauwatosa West culinary program, although previous cooking experience and training is strongly recommended. Lor decided to try out for the Prostart Program because she frequently cooks for her family. She is enrolled in the Culinary Arts 1 class for the Spring Semester.
“I like cooking at home and cooking for my family and so I am looking to expand my horizons. And I think the club would help me expand my palate, learn new techniques and expose me to different foods,” said Lor.
Sophomore Luke Grove has been cooking since he was ten and was a member of the Prostart Team last year. He noted that cooking at home is very different from cooking in a competitive atmosphere. “I liked the competitive aspect of cooking in a time frame, it is very different from home cooking. In a Prostart team, there is a lot of pressure,” said Grove. However, he enjoys the intensity of the environment. “The judges are watching over you. I liked getting barked at. It is stressful. I really enjoyed cooking in the environment.”
At the competition, each Prostart Team does not compete in a full kitchen. They use modified equipment such as using a camping stove for baking and gas burners. There is also no electricity.
Cooking in a team in an environment with limited resources made the competition a new learning experience. “It was a challenge, but it was also problem solving [while] still getting things cooked,” said Grove.
According to the National Restaurant Education Foundation website, the Prostart program helps build a career and technical education that brings together the food service industry and the classroom to teach high school students culinary skills and restaurant management principles, as well as employability skills such as communication, teamwork, professionalism, and time management.
Participating schools each have a team that competes in the regional and state competition. The first place state winner gets a chance to compete nationally and gets a paid trip to Maryland. Students practice while being coached by the teacher and a chef mentor.
The program does more than just teach the teens of the community about cooking, it teaches them about teamwork and working together while having one common goal; winning.
