Cooking up knowledge

After 30-plus years in the food service industry, Chef Terryl Jackson can still remember the desire he had to be a chef in the kitchen at as young as eight-years-old.
Jackson said, “My grandmother was a nutritionist in the Terrebonne Parish school system and my mother actually worked for the Archdiocese in Terrebonne Parish as a cook, and they were both great cooks. That’s what influenced my decision to become a chef.”
With his family’s influence and hands on training from a variety of chefs, Jackson was able to work his way up to becoming a chef at Lafayette restaurant Prejean’s. Soon however he realized it was time to slow things down so that he could now bring his knowledge and understanding of the culinary world to the youth of Evangeline Parish; the place his wife Betsy (Johnson) Jackson is from.
Jackson said, “It takes a toll on your body being on your feet all day working in restaurants, and it was time for a change. Now I work as the School Nutrition Program Manager at Ville Platte High’s lunchroom. This has allowed me to have the time to start a program to expose our kids to culinary arts.”
Jackson, who also works as an instructor for the Flat Town Culinary Academy, began his efforts to educate and inform students between the ages of 13 and 18 on the vastly diverse world of culinary arts with this first ever summer-long program for kids that have an interest in cooking.
“In this area there are great foods and lots of cooks, but our kids are not necessarily exposed to the many facets of culinary arts,” said Jackson. “That’s what we want to expose them to. I want our kids to learn about the techniques and presentation that also goes into cooking.”
Just one month into the program, the 20 students participating have already learned how to make their own salad dressing from scratch as well as can their own pickles.
Jackson said, “We want to help the kids become well rounded in culinary arts and encourage creativity. One way we are doing that is by using the farm-to-table concept, which is where we grow the foods that we will work with, like the cucumbers that the students used to can pickles.”
Along with growing their own garden of vegetables, the students have also learned how to make peach and apple cobbler.
To learn about some of Ville Platte’s local food industries, Jackson’s students experienced what it is like making sausage and boudin at Paul’s Meat Market and Grocery earlier this month and will be treated to a presentation from Uptown Cakes owner Lisa Crane later this summer.
With one month down, Jackson is left feeling optimistic about the good that can come from this unique program, as long as the funding is there.
Jackson said, “After seeing what the kids have gotten out of this so far, we’d love to be able to have something similar to this year around, but it costs a lot of money. We’ve depended on the support of the community to make this summer program possible, but to make it more than just a summer thing we will need more help.”
To be able to offer this program to students, Jackson partnered with the Evangeline Parish School Board and the LSU Ag Center, who has allowed him to use their kitchens as a learning and cooking center; the Ville Platte Boys and Girls Club (VPBGC), who helped fill the program with students interested in culinary arts; and the Evangeline Parish District Attorney’s Office’s Families In Need of Services Program, which purchased each student a full chef uniform and a basic set of knives with knife bags.
Jackson said, “I’m impressed with the mind set and talent in our class, and I believe that our future is going to be truly bright as long as we come together as a community and put actions to the talk like Mayor Jennifer Vidrine and the City Council have done with the Boys and Girls Club. This program is important for the kids here because it is something that has never been offered, and for that reason we hope that we will be able to receive as much help as possible from the community so that we can continue to offer this program to our youth.”
To see what the students have learned over the summer through this program, the public is invited to attend a banquet that will be held on August 2, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. at the Ville Platte Civic Center. Tickets for the event will go on sale on July 8th at the VPBGC or Ville Platte City Hall, and the proceeds will benefit Flat Town Culinary Academy and the VPBGC.