Being a good cook is a wonderful life skill and improves the lives of those around you. Mastering the culinary arts can also open social doors and offers an opportunity to widen your palate and explore various global flavours and cultures. Cooking skills can also help you to eat healthily as they make you more conscious of how meals are put together and help you to make wiser, more delectable and healthier dietary decisions. These cooking classes first outline the ten traits that a chef must possess in order to pursue the culinary arts. Those who have never worked in a kitchen may think that there is no difference between a ‘chef’ and a ‘cook’, but this is not the case and these cooking classes offer an opportunity to appreciate the distinction between the two.

The course then examines gastronomy, the ‘art of choosing and cooking good food, and shows you how it encourages cultural awareness and fosters a stronger bond between people and their traditions. We explain how to properly preserve and cook various kinds of fish and meat. We then cover food hygiene, health and safety and describe food safety legislation, microbiological hazards and physical, chemical and allergenic hazards. The course discusses food storage and preparation to help you avoid food contamination and spoilage. We also address food allergen awareness, the basics of food allergens, allergen guidance for food businesses and consumers and allergic reactions and treatments.

‘Nutritional awareness’ describes the kind of meals that people eat and their reasons for doing so. We lay out the fundamentals of nutrition and outline the advantages of a balanced diet and the impact of nutrition on health. These cooking classes then move on to specific national cuisines, starting with Italian delicacies like the ideal soffritto and saffron-infused risotto. We go through each recipe step by step to help you create scrumptious dishes from many countries. We also cover chocolate making from A-Z and provide fun facts about chocolate and recipes for chocolate cake. This course has no prerequisite and suits those who want to work as professional chefs or anyone who wants to learn how to cook.