What's for dinner?

On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, groups of 15 students gather in the music room at General Shanks Elementary School.

But they’re not there to sing or play instruments. Instead, they’re learning about ingredients and utensils.

The school’s cooking club, which is new this year, gives third, fourth and fifth graders an opportunity to learn hands-on about how to be self-sufficient in the kitchen.

During the Nov. 1 session, students made salsa, which they later used as an ingredient in their mini meatloafs, and brown rice with vegetables. 

Sitting in a group prior to getting to work, Amie Carpenter of Purdue Extension’s Nutrition Education Program explains to the students that if they don’t particularly like vegetables, cutting them into smaller pieces will help make them blend in with the meatloaf and go unnoticed when eating. Later, while working together on their salsa, third graders Caleb Sibray and Addisen Maurer discuss how much “spicy stuff” they want to include.

“It’s really fun,” said fifth grader Lincoln Clamme, who was working with Sibray and Maurer. “You get to make different dishes and have fun with other people.”

In small groups, they wash, measure and cut with the help of an adult volunteer. They read and follow the recipes that have been provided. They make sure they properly clean their stations in order to avoid cross-contamination. And when they’re done, they scoop their meat creations into a muffin tin and turn them over to Carpenter to be taken to the oven.

And then it’s on to the rice and vegetables, which they heat on portable cooking devices that are at each table. When everything is complete, and they learn to use a thermometer to make sure the meat is cooked to a safe temperature, the students get to try their meals.

“We’re a good team,” Clamme said to Maurer and Sibray as they marveled about how good their meatloaf smelled and how excited they were to taste it.

“Mmm, this is so good,” said Tessa Frazee moments later as she got to try her salsa for the first time.

And when it’s time to wash dishes, the volunteers come quickly, with Alexis Sibray, Tessa Frazee and Clamme rushing off to help cooking club creator Connie Muhlenkamp.

It’s that excitement about cooking that Carpenter and Muhlenkamp hope to instill in their students.

“I think it’s really important to start teaching them how to cook,” said Carpenter. “They’re going to use that all through their life.”

The idea for the cooking club came in the spring when a new student enrolled at General Shanks. He asked Muhlenkamp, then the school’s secretary, if a cooking club already existed.

It didn’t. But its creation didn’t take long.

Muhlenkamp also serves as Jay County Farm Bureau’s educational outreach coordinator and knew the organization was interested in getting more involved with students.

“As a secretary, I knew that there wasn’t a lot of time in the day,” she said.

But after school was a different story.

A day after the new student posed the question, Muhlenkamp presented the idea at her Farm Bureau meeting. It was well-received.

A day after that, an instructor was in place, and soon Indiana Farm Bureau had approved a grant to pay for utensils and ingredients.

General Shanks held sign-ups for the program at the beginning of the school year and had more than 100 participants on the list within the first week. The club launched after Labor Day with 30 students — half on Tuesdays and half on Thursdays — taking part in the six-week course. That group graduated in October, and the second is now underway.

Another sign-up will be held in December to accommodate any students who would still like to be involved.

The meatloaf on Nov. 1 followed a recipe for egg sandwiches a week earlier. Students have also made shish kabobs, smoothies and peanut butter protein balls during their sessions. Carpenter tries to make sure to involve as many food groups as possible in the recipes that she pulls from resources such as the United States Department of Agriculture Mixing Bowl, Eat Gather Go and Spend Smart Eat Smart websites.

“I am trying to make sure that it’s healthy,” said Carpenter. “That’s important, first and foremost. And that it’s affordable, something that they can make at home that doesn’t have crazy expensive ingredients in it.”

She mentioned a boy from the first six-week class who didn’t like vegetables. But, as part of the cooking class, he was encouraged to at least try the dishes he made, vegetables and all. That proved to be a struggle during the first week. But the situation changed, as over the next five weeks he made sure to let Carpenter know he had tried everything without even being asked to.

“Each class after that, he did such a great job trying everything,” said Carpenter. “I really saw a big difference in him.”

The goal for next year is to make those differences throughout Jay School Corporation by expanding the cooking club to Bloomfield, Westlawn and Redkey elementary schools. Funding for those programs, with the exception of start-up costs, is already in place. (Students who are in the cooking club already this year would have the opportunity to move on to an advanced club next year.)

Stretching beyond Jay County, the General Shanks program will be featured at December’s Farm Bureau state convention in an effort to add it to schools throughout Indiana.

At the end of each session, students can take home any extras or leftovers to eat later and/or share with their families. They also receive a copy of each recipe to allow them to try to make it at home.

Many of the students said they already knew a little bit about cooking from working with family in the kitchen — some making dinner and some more focused on desserts.

“I always help my mom when she wants me to do dinner,” said Aleczandrya McBride. “I just like cooking because, like, it’s my grandma’s thing, and it’s just like what my grandma does.”

But regardless of previous experience, their opinions about the club seemed to be the same:

“I like it,” said fifth grader Wyatt Twigg. “Cooking is fun.”