Hospitality leadership students prepare Thanksgiving feast
Students in East Carolina University’s School of Hospitality Management’s advanced food production and service management class served a Thanksgiving feast for lunch in the Darden Dining Hall on Nov. 21.
This was the finale in a series of five themed luncheons spanning late October and November. The luncheons were open to ECU students, faculty and staff. Meals included an appetizer, entrée, sides, dessert and a drink.
Planning for the lunches began on the first day of class as Dr. Jacqui De Chabert-Rios, teaching assistant professor, assigned homework for each student to provide a theme and the menu around that theme. Once in one of five groups, the group voted to choose a theme, which for this semester included medieval foods, Caribbean Christmas, Saudi Arabia, Greek Isles and Thanksgiving feast.
Senior Olivia Sullivan, left, supervises students preparing a Thanksgiving meal in the kitchen as part of a School of Hospitality Leadership luncheon. (ECU Photo by Rhett Butler)
At each luncheon, one group served as managers while their peers assisted with tasks such as polishing silverware, folding napkins and decorating the dining room. Every group had the opportunity to manage a lunch while rotating through front and back of the house tasks, gaining new perspectives.
“I’ve gained a ton of business experience,” said senior Calli Barlowe. “It’s a test run as if you were in an industrial kitchen. We’re serving, we’re cooking, learning what you need to do for health inspections and how to cook and serve properly. We do everything as if you were in a five-star restaurant.”
Junior Sarah Clougherty of Raleigh was one of the managers in the Thanksgiving group. She and her peers quickly identified their main course.
“We started with our entrée and knew we wanted to make turkey,” she said. “We quickly decided on green beans as a side along with cranberry sauce. We were trying to determine our third side, and I said that I love stuffing. It’s iconic and I thought we should do that. For our appetizer, we looked online and picked sweet potato bites. We felt like we needed to have an iconic pie as a dessert but wanted to add our own twist, so we did pumpkin pie bars.”
After determining the menu, planning began.
“The planning process began around the second or third week of class,” Barlowe said. “We had to find recipes and then break down every single ingredient that we needed. Once we did that, we had a practice lunch where we made it for the class, but then we had to take those weights and calculate for roughly 70 people between the class and guests.”
On the afternoon of Nov. 20, Barlowe, Clougherty and two other members of their group were alone in the kitchen but hardly quiet. The quartet stayed busy by doing inventory, checking supplies, comparing their recipes with available ingredients and weighing items. Once each item was measured, the amount was entered into a spreadsheet to help calculate how much would be needed.
A Busy Day
Lunch was served from noon to 1 p.m., but the work began several hours earlier. While others supervised kitchen operations, Barlowe and Clougherty managed the dining area, decorating and preparing tables. Working with her classmates to pull off the event is one of Clougherty’s favorite aspects of the luncheons.
“That’s the coolest part about it,” she said. “It’s brought all of us in the class closer. When it’s not your group in charge, you work with everyone like you’re part of the staff. We get the full experience of how it feels to plan an event, take ownership of it and oversee a group of people.”
Clougherty and her group scheduled down to the minute what they’d be telling the staff to do. Workers in the kitchen weighed and cut green beans while others in the dining area ironed tablecloths. At the appropriate time, the turkey went into the oven while table arrangements were being completed. Once the luncheon began, servers hustled back and forth taking care of guests.
Barlowe identified two skills that were essential to making the event run smoothly.
“It’s a lot of teamwork and communication, from making sure that you’re using the oven at the right time and communicating with people when you’re walking behind them. Some of the other groups had new recipes that I’ve never tried, and it was good to be able to ask someone who knew the answer,” Barlowe said.
Having completed an internship at the Country Club of Buffalo, which gave her serving experience in fine dining, Barlowe gained a new perspective on what goes on in the kitchen.
“I was way more comfortable with the serving part, but this let me see what goes on behind the scenes,” she said.
With the semester winding down, Clougherty feels like the course has her ready for what lies ahead in a hospitality management career.
“This class has done a lot to prepare me because it’s so hands-on,” she said. “You have to plan, so it has the event planning element. You have to serve, so it has that aspect of hotel and lodging and you have to cook, which is the food and beverage aspect. It’s really in person, which I enjoy because I’m a hands-on learner.”