As schools look for ways to meet the new school meal regulations and to increase the amount of from-scratch items, menu development training is becoming increasingly important. In April, The Culinary Institute of America opened its kitchen to 14 school foodservice professionals from seven districts for the Getting Back to Your Roots Symposium, sponsored by Schwan’s Food Service. The three-day conference based at the CIA’s San Antonio campus focused on culinary development, with an emphasis on plate presentation and creating food for children’s palates. FSD talked with Mark Ainsworth, CEC, professor of culinary at the CIA and the architect of the symposium, about the conference and what attendees learned. 
The group poses for a shot at the CIA’s San Antonio campus. The districts each sent two representatives. The seven districts are: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Cobb County School District in Georgia, Mesa Public Schools, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools, San Diego Unified School District and Northside Independent School District in San Antonio.
“We wanted to get them out of their day-to-day and into a new environment to foster ideas,” Ainsworth says about the reasoning behind creating the symposium. “They need training to help them meet the new school regulations in creative ways, using cooking methods they use every day.”
Ainsworth says he wanted to create an environment where school foodservice professionals would gain new menu items without being in unfamiliar territory. Ainsworth spent two years working with schools, so he says he is familiar with the equipment constraints that most schools are dealing with. For that reason, he ensured participants at the conference were using equipment that can be found in most school kitchens.
Ainsworth demos cooking and plating techniques for the participants. Attendees spent between six and eight hours getting hands-on time in the kitchen. “It’s hard to change when you’re in your district. This program gives you permission and the tools to make changes,” Ainsworth says. “The changes don’t have to be big. They can start with one or two a year.”
(From left to right) Bertrand Weber, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Mary Martinez and Cynthia Baron, from Northside Independent School District, work on a recipe they created. Participants were broken up into small groups and paired with members from other districts to create new menu items, especially those items that meet the new meal regs. Ainsworth says the attendees’ first crack at menu presentation needed a bit of work. For example, one dish had a cabbage leaf under the dish, which Ainsworth says is a nonfunctional garnish. He also taught the operators to plate dishes in odd numbers of components and to use asymmetrical positioning to create more visual appeal.
“Presentation is a big deal. Sometimes I don’t think they think that,” Ainsworth says. “I think their eyes were opened up about going back to their operations and looking at their lines to see how they present everything from salad bars to drinks.”
The second day attempt at plate presentation turned out much better than the first, Ainsworth says. Here, Fred Espinosa, San Diego Unified School District, works on his food prep.
In addition to Ainsworth’s lectures on food presentation, Adam Brumberg, from Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab, spoke to attendees about the presentation in the sense of the line setup and where the put healthier items to encourage students in a subtle way to take the better-for-you options.
Attendees also had a chance to learn about the physiology of foods through a food tasting demonstration. Ainsworth taught participants about the differences in children versus adult tastes—students have more taste buds and are heavily influenced by texture and colors.
Lastly, participants were encouraged to brand their operations. “They were really surprised that they have potential to brand their operations,” Ainsworth says. “Some of the districts do that very well. Their customers, which are the kids, see branding all the time in whatever restaurant they go into, so I think the school districts have a great opportunity to brand for themselves somehow. That could be lots of things. It could be branding around a school garden or purchasing local produce.”
The event was sponsored by Schwan’s Food Service.