RECIPE BOOK ASSIGNMENT

The assignment iwas developed by Chef Thom England, at Ivy Tech Community College, to have students develop their own recipe book. The assignment is worth 100 points. Three recipes are to be turned in each week by students to help them build the book during the course from week 3 and going through week 12.

The recipes are used to publish a recipe book that is printed in early January. Each recipe is to be written for a home cook, not a restaurant cook. The recipes must be twists on American Regional Classics. In essence, students are to take a classic recipe of the region they will be studying and make it a Midwestern recipe.

As an incentive to do their best, five recipes are selected each week to go into the book. The students who have recipes selected are pictured in the book. The assignment itself goes as follows:

The regions studied in Weeks 3 through 12 are:
New England, Mid Atlantic, South, Floribean, Cajun/Creole, Tex Mex, Southwest and Rockies, California, Pacific NW, and Hawaii,

Basic Requirements:

* 30 total standardized recipes are required.
* All recipes must be written in a professional manner. Plagiarism is taken very seriously; do not steal someone else’s recipe.
* Recipes must be turned in electronically.
* Projects Due the day your class meets.

Students are to Use the Following Recipe Template

Name of Recipe
Yield
Ingredients in order of use
Directions
Preparation time
Cooking Time
Directions for Portioning, plating and garnishing
Directions for cleaning up and storing leftovers

Final Grade is Worth 100 Points Using This Rubric:

Recipes professionally written (16 points)
Transforms recipe to Midwestern (12 points)
Appropriate for the region (12 points)
Name of Recipe (6 points)
Yield (6 points)
Ingredients list in order of use (9 points)
Equipment needed (6 points)
Directions (15 points)
Preparation and cooking times (6 points)
Directions for portioning, plating and garnishing (6 points)
Directions for breaking down, cleaning up and storing leftovers (6 points)

Here is Thom's opinion of the education merits of this project:

I incorporated it in an American Regional Cuisines class. Each week students had to take a traditional recipes from the region we were studying and give it a mid-west twist. My motive in the project was to get them to think more in depth about the traditions of the regions. And, at the same time to start to have a deeper understanding of what Indiana had to offer. (I was getting tired of hearing Indiana didn’t have any food traditions). As we got into the semester it was dramatic the impact it was making on students. I started hearing students in the hallway talking about finding sources of local food ingredients. They became excited because all of the sudden they could use a new ingredient in their recipes. Then, they started bringing in items like Paw Paws and Persimmons because they wanted to know more about what to do with them and what they tasted like. I can say without a doubt that the project helped the students to start thinking on their own how to develop recipes on their own using what is growing seasonally around them. I saw too often with different recipe assignments in the past they just copied something from the internet with a couple of changes. After the books were printed they were distributed to the students involved and at key fundraisers. They have been a hit, know in our second printing.

The book is then sold to the public as a program fundraiser. A copy can be had or viewed at:
https://ivytech.ejoinme.org/MyEvents/AprilInParis2009/IndianaHarvestCookbook/tabid/147439/Default.aspx

If interesting in learning more about this assignment, please contact:

Chef Thom England
Culinary Arts Instructor
Hospitality AdministrationIvy Tech Community College-Central Indiana
Office NMC 409
50 W. Fall Creek Pkwy. North Dr.
Indianapolis, IN 46208-5752
Cell: 317-523-2952
tengland@ivytech.edu
www.ivytech.edu/indianapolis