Each year The Peoples’ Church kitchen is transformed into a burrito-making factory while Sharon Scharf’s home economics class creates an assembly line for an hour of burrito-making madness. This transformation was made during first and second period home ec. class on Nov. 21.
Appliances were cleared away and a giant table was created to hold nine feet of beans, rice, ground beef, tomato sauce, lettuce, cheese and various other ingredience.
Spanish food company, La Victoria, sponsored a program from ’99 through ’01 for high school home economics classes to promote the company’s products through new recipes.
“I entered the program to help my students get a broader perspective on other cultures foods, plus it is always a lot of fun,” Scharf said.
La Victoria Foods Inc supplied each participating school with the needed supplies of their company’s brand of food and extra money to fund the project.
“We just wanted to break the record,” Scharf said. “The recipe says it can make an eight-foot burrito but every year we have made a nine-foot burrito.”
Students were challenged to cook or bake the different foods, evaluate the recipes and respond to the company.
“I love the burrito,” Jynna Clay, ’04, said. “It’ s the best part of the whole year. Mexican food is definitely my all time favorite.”
Even though La Victoria has not been using this promotion for the past two years, Scharf continues to utilize the recipe every year.
“Hopefully, 30 years from now, students will look back and say, ?the thing I remember the most about home economics was the nine-foot burrito,'” Scharf said.
Scharf’s hopes of remembrance and recognition seem to be fulfilled.
“I will always remember the burrito.” Chris Vanden Hoek, ’03, said. “It was the best part of the entire year. We could feed the entire student body in less than an hours worth of cooking.”
According to students, home ec. consists of positive benefits other than eating.
“I want to be a chef and open some kind of restaurant on the beach and have a skate park near it,” Nick Carrera, ’05, said. “Home ec helps me get more confidence in new recipes and to know how I’m doing compared to other people.”
For more information on campus home economics classes, students and teachers can contact the high school office at 299-1695, ext. 5.
