KTRE.com Lufkin and Nacogdoches |Students Learn Art Of Fine Dining

Students Learn Art Of Fine Dining

by Donna McCollum

Many young executives are stumped when it comes to which fork to use during a five course meal. That won't concern high school students from throughout the area who attended a business protocol workshop at Stephen F. Austin State University.

Many of these teenagers are accustomed to eating hamburgers and fries on the run. Now they have learned about those utensils called a fork and a knife.

Garrett Dubose of Jasper High School said of himself, "I'm just a backwoods country boy, so I'm finger foods."

Something not in Dr. Rachel Underwoods' vocabulary. The protocol graduate can teach you how to keep a cherry tomato from scooting off your plate and how to contend with very cheesy french onion soup.

Asa Lipscomb of Central Heights High School did his best to maneuver the stubborn garnish with his soup spoon. "They're trying to make it hard on us."

No, just trying to prepare teens for social settings said Underwood. "The home situations are so different now. We don't sit down to have meal times, so if we can start fostering this type of setting from at the high school level it will help them gain a lot more confidence."

Something Daniel Gearhart of Trinity High School lacked while learning the difference between Continental and American eating styles. "What I want to know is it's a little easier just to stab it like this? I don't know if that's acceptable," he asked. When asked if he was eating Continental or American Gearhart replied, "I don't really know, really."

By the main course even the country boy who loves finger foods understands the lesson. "It gives everybody a more proper look, gives you more profound definition of what you are," said Dubose. And hopefully by dessert Gearhart will have mastered fine dining.

Stephen F. Austin and Angelina College with the help of SFA's Human Sciences Department put on the workshop. There are plans to have a similar one for young adults and young children.