Education

10 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS - SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2019 CULINARY & HOSPITALITY PROGRAMS SCHOOLS OFFER UP MANITOBA- STYLE HOSPITALITY By Jim Timlick for the Free Press A pair of Winnipeg-based colleges have cooked up some creative ways to serve the Manitoba hospitality sector and add to its talent pool. The Manitoba Tourism Education College (MTEC) and Commonwealth College both offer a number of courses designed to give workers the skills and experience they need to fill a number of different roles in the local hospitality industry. MTEC, a not-for-profit school operated by the Manitoba Tourism Education Council, offers five hospitality-related courses including: front desk clerk, housekeeping room attendant, food and beverage server; line cook; and the recently-added bartender and food and beverage server. Council CEO Shannon Fontaine says the curriculum for the five programs is based on national occupational standards and was "developed for the industry by the industry" to address a chronic shortage of workers in the hospitality sector. The food and beverage server training program includes six weeks of classroom training and a 30-hour work practicum. Students receive instruction on a variety of subjects including customer service, professionalism, communication skills, food and beverage product knowledge, how to handle difficult situations and emergency first aid. "The basic goal is to get you in the door," says Fontaine, adding a large number of students in the course end up being offered jobs during their practicum. MTEC's line cook training program provides eight weeks of training which includes kitchen operations and terminology, basic recipes, food preparation, food handling and sanitation principles, dietary restrictions, and receiving and storing foods. A major focus of the line cook program is providing participants with three weeks of hands-on experience in a commercial-grade kitchen near the school's Scurfield Boulevard campus as well as a 30-hour practicum. That includes learning how to prepare everything from soup to crème brûlée. Most graduates of the line cook program find employment soon after graduation. "There's a real shortage of line cooks in this city and in the province," Fontaine says. The bartender and food and beverage server training program is MTEC's newest offering with the first session starting recently. It includes seven weeks of classroom training with a focus on Smart Choices responsible service certification, preparing and serving mixed drinks, bartending tools and equipment, customer service, processing payments and how to deal with difficult situations. Students also take part in a 30-hour work practicum. Fontaine says the bartender program was developed in response to the growing needs of local hotels and restaurants. "There's a shortage of bartenders in the city. It's unbelievable. Places like the Winnipeg Convention Centre call us all the time," she says. "It's a good occupation. A lot of people prefer it because it works out to be more of a managerial position where they're sort of running the bar." L-R: Christy Bochurka (bookkeeper), Cathy Hayes (career counsellor) and Jackie Tsouras (college co-ordinator) in one of the Manitoba Tourism Education College's classrooms. Photos by Jason Halstead Food preparation is a major focus of Commonwealth College, a private school formerly known as Patal Vocational School. Its 10-month, full-time culinary arts program offers students 1,350 hours of instruction split between the classroom and a full apprenticeship-accredited kitchen located on the school's William Avenue campus. As part of the program, students receive instruction on food- related subjects including food safety, the principles of cooking and baking, flavours and flavouring, and how to apply what they've learned in the classroom to the kitchen. Steven Watson, head of the college's culinary arts faculty, says the program has been designed to simulate the conditions students will face working in a commercial kitchen and allow them to "hit the ground running" upon graduation. "We like to tell people that students read about it, we talk about it and then we do it," he says. "We focus a lot on the practical to ensure that when they graduate and go out there (and be) a productive member of a culinary team. Theory is important too, but a lot of times it's about getting your hands dirty, so to speak. That's what we try to get them ready for." One of the more unique aspects of Commonwealth's culinary arts program is its 1491 initiative, which was designed to recover and reimagine Indigenous cuisine for the 21st century. It essentially tries to re-create the way food was prepared here more than 500 years ago using only ingredients that were available at the time. That means using maple syrup or berries in place of processed sweeteners, for example, or duck or bison fat instead of cooking oil. The 1491 menu has been requested by a number of clients who use the college's catering service and has received rave reviews. "It's been shockingly popular," Watson says. "When people hear about it they're fascinated." For more information, visit mtec.mb.ca or commonwealthcollege.ca. ❚

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