Cooking up a final exam

Guest judges Bud Kennedy '76 and Grady Spears enjoy student cooking.

Fort Worth, TX

7/17/2008

Grads-to-be gobble up Gourmet Foods nutrition course.

Take three ingredients: A pound of tenderized round steak, four Yukon gold potatoes and a bag of baby spinach. Then devise and prepare a meal in 90 minutes with whatever's in the pantry. No recipes. Just your culinary instincts.

Oh, and, it'll be judged by a Fort Worth executive chef and the city's leading food reporter.
That's the final exam in the nutrition course Gourmet Foods, patterned after the Food Network culinary game show Iron Chef.

"I think it's a truer test of what they'll experience long after they've left this class," says nutrition department chair Anne VanBeber, who has taught the course for seven years but has given the hands-on final the last two. "On any given night, they'll have to prepare a meal based on what's at hand, based on what they know, not on what's in a textbook. And they very well may have special guests to cook for now and then. It's very practical."

The idea behind the challenge is for students, who work in teams of four, to create a plate that appeals to multiple senses. Colors, textures, sizes, shapes, aromas. The wider the variety the better.

Offered only in the spring for seniors about to graduate, the course has 24 slots and is open to all majors. It's a popular upper-level elective. VanBeber says students are already e-mailing her about getting in next year's class. "I told them, 'Write back in August.' "

This year, students plated their dishes for guest judges Grady Spears, co-owner of Dutch's and author of two cookbooks, and Star-Telegram food writer Bud Kennedy '76.

"It was a tough cut of meat to cook. To be thrown a cut of meat and potatoes, you all did a good job," Spears told the class.

Ultimately, a team of non-nutrition majors (photo below) concocted the winning dish: steak pinwheels stuffed with feta cheese, spinach and roasted red peppers. The dish included roasted potatoes with tomatoes and parmesan cheese, a garnish of roasted pecans with brown sugar, and dessert of warm chocolate pudding with whipped cream.

An exam to die for.

Web extra: Recently graduated Dylan Taylor-Smith '07 shares what she learned in the Gourmet Foods course.