UMW Student Culinary Club Prepares Mystery Box Dinner

The Student Culinary Club at the University of Mary Washington culminated its first full semester as an organized club by preparing a celebration dinner using mystery ingredients.

The mystery boxes were created by Chef Mary Williams, the Culinary Club's culinary instructor and production manager at Sodexo's University of Mary Washington Dining Services.

Each week student club members received professional culinary instruction. They learned how to properly use knives and execute basic knife cuts and how to butterfly pork loins, tie butchers' knots, make soup stock, and prepare pasta from scratch.

For the mystery box dinner, club members broke into three teams of two and each team was given a mystery box containing one protein - beef, chicken, or fish. They were then challenged to create a full dinner plate with their protein, a starch, and a vegetable.

At completion of the challenge, each team served their dishes family-style to Chef Mary and the rest of the club members. Dishes included fish tacos, braised beef, and chipotle chicken, along with home-style mashed potatoes, and potato pancakes.

As they shared their celebration meal, the students exchanged thoughts about the club and what they had learned. Everyone agreed that learning how to break down a chicken was their favorite part of the course, and that understanding how to prepare a meal so each dish is hot and ready at the same time was most difficult.

Sean Silke and Anthony Sherman, the student organizers of the club, had some culinary experience, but most of the other students had little if any culinary skills or knowledge.

"What I like about the Culinary Club is that it provides a fun and professional environment where students can learn new techniques and gain valuable information about how to prepare healthy meals for themselves,” said Silke, a Business Administration major, May 2020.

Regardless of their previous level of experience, they all agreed that Chef Mary taught them new and very practical skills that they would be using as aspiring home cooks.

“I really enjoyed teaching these young people some basic kitchen and cooking skills,” said Chef Mary. “They were serious about wanting to learn and it was very rewarding to see how their skills improved in only a couple of months. I think it was truly a great experience for them and for me, too.”