Group five teenage guys together and have them design a food truck concept. What ensues?
“I immediately thought that we should make it something funny,” said Will Schuering, a senior in BHS’s Foods II class. “So I said ‘hey we should do Balls O’Meat, and we should sell balls of meat.’ And my group agreed.”
Every year, Ms. Biever, the FACS teacher at Brentwood, has students complete a project that involves designing a food truck. The project incorporates all aspects of planning and starting a new business, such as factoring in location, budget, and menu. “I think it’s really important for students to do research into the business side of restaurants, and then they have a lot of fun making the models and getting to make food from it,” said Ms. Biever, who has been doing this project for three years. “I like to invite staff members to be judges so that way they can see the fun things we are doing in class and how creative students are!”
“I love being asked to judge,” said English teacher Mrs. Cohen. “I used to be a food editor for a magazine and then a newspaper, so it’s fun to get to do that sort of thing again. Plus, I always like getting free food mid-day – no one’s food has poisoned me yet!”
After a week of planning and building food truck models, the groups were ready to take the final step: making a specialty dish to be scrutinized by a panel of judges. As the students took to the kitchens, they all had one goal—to make the best dish they possibly could.
“I think [the project] was pretty fun, and I felt very relaxed,” commented Sophia Lee, a senior and a member of one of the winning teams. “We kinda thought we had it in the bag, and it’s also hard to be stressed when you’re making waffles!”
After a bit more than an hour of cooking, it was time for the student’s dishes to be judged. The judges (composed of teachers and even principals) had four categories that they each rated on a scale of 1 to 5. The categories included: Menu Design, Food Truck Design, Theme and Overall Concept, and Food Samples.
In the 1B section of Foods II, which competed on April 4th, the winner was Central Waffle with their creative version of tie-dye waffles, created by freshmen Meerab Fatima, Bodie Wilson, Cloe Bass, and Chloe Zhang.
In the 2A section, which competed the following day (April 5th), there were two winners! Waffle Home, created by seniors Emelda Forney, Cora Urhahn, Ethan Corwin, Sophia Lee, and Kevin Ou, received a high score with their signature dish, Churro Waffles. The other winner was Soba Mazing, created by Nora Campos Martinez (12), Belen Campos Martinez (9), Natalie Moomey (9), and Malaina Ray (11), who received the same amount of points with their dish, Soba Noodles.
Everyone came up with such creative food truck ideas; it makes us wish some of these were real food trucks. We can’t wait for what people come up with next year!
