Jr. / Teen Iron Chef

A Youth Development Program exploring culinary, food systems and gardening education

Jr. / Teen Iron Chef empowers youth to challenge themselves on a skills level while practicing being part of team effort.  Young people develop leadership, teamwork, and culinary skills as well as gain nutrition knowledge and a new appreciation for diverse, healthy and sustainably-produced food.

The evidence-based curriculum, available electronically, is designed to be implemented by school or community group staff (trained and certified by us) to combat the growing obesity problem in youth.  Teen Iron chef involves two teams of up to 6 youth who collaboratively prep a recipe from a designated culture.  Along with the recipe, each team is given a basic knife skills ‘clinic’ (by facilitating adult), recipe technique coaching, cultural and nutritional background on the recipe and all the equipment and ingredients.  Working against the clock, each team responds with a presentation, to demonstrate their recipe and describe its cultural background and nutritional value. Key characteristics  for implementing this program include:

The 7-session cycle presents 5 ‘battles’ each complete with recipe, nutrition and cultural background, scoring sheets and Competition Rules.  Middle school aged groups can run the Jr. Iron Chef program, which is specially adapted for preteens skill and reading level. The program can be conducted as an after school or weekend cooking club, or an in-school elective.

We recommend that the cycles of 7 sessions be repeated 2-3 times over the school year, allowing for new students experience and explore the empowering program.

Guidelines are provided for a celebratory finale, where students develop their Final Battle themselves, creating their own recipes, researching on the Internet, and inviting family, friends, school food chef and other guests to judge!   No fancy kitchen is necessary: “Teen Iron Chef” is designed for the most basic learning environment (or in school kitchens during off hours).

Organizations can opt to add ancillary modules such as cookbook creation, gardening, and community presentations.   

New in 2009: FamilyCook has licensed Teen Iron Chef to HealthCorps to 50 schools in 10 states. Together, HealthCorps and FamilyCook are developing a youth leadership component offering Iron Chef 'graduates' opportunities for: competitions; community presentations and events,  farmers market cooking demonstrations; and service learning with younger students.

Meet Our Teen Iron Chefs in Brooklyn, NY

Coming in 2010! Teen Iron Chef Youth Leadership Track, a project in partnership with Dr. Oz’s HealthCorps….

Recent projects

Bring Jr./Teen Iron Chef to your school/organization

Annotated Table of Contents

Research

Letter to principal or community leader