Lebanon High highlights hands-on culinary program, dual-credit classes with Ivy Tech

Jenny Merritt, a culinary and nutrition teacher at Lebanon High School, described the class’s emphasis on practical skills such as breaking down a whole chicken and using leftovers to make stock. Merritt, who said this is her ninth year at the school, told listeners that students learn cost-saving techniques such as buying and cutting a whole chicken rather than purchasing individual pieces.

Jared Miller, who teaches principles of culinary arts and hospitality at Lebanon High School and the advanced Culinary Arts and Hospitality 2 course, said the program includes fundamentals — "basic knife skills, cooking techniques, how to follow and read a recipe, and all the basic kind of skills that you need to survive on your own." He noted the advanced course aligns with dual-credit work at Ivy Tech and covers stocks, the five mother sauces of classical French cuisine and soups from around the world.

The demonstration focused on a sautéed chicken served with a rice pilaf made from rice, carrots, onions and celery cooked with stock. In-class practice includes cutting a whole chicken into eight parts — two legs, two thighs, two breasts and two wings — and using the backs to make stock for future lessons. Student Ben, a first-year culinary student, said, "I took a culinary class because I wanted to learn how to cook some recipes and cut up a chicken." Merritt added a personal anecdote about growing up on a chicken farm to illustrate the lesson’s roots in practical experience.

The program offers four levels of dual-credit instruction through Ivy Tech, Miller said, and he emphasized that the dual-credit option is free for students. In addition to butchery and stocks, teachers said students practice dishes such as focaccia bread and learn how food connects to other school subjects: "food is art, food is chemistry, food is biology, it's math, It's history. It's economics," Miller said.

Teachers presented the course as both life-skill education and a possible pathway to further training; Miller pointed to the dual-credit alignment with Ivy Tech as a way for students to earn postsecondary credit while in high school. No formal decisions or votes were recorded during the presentation.