Since 2008, the Jr Iron Chef VT culinary competition has been challenging teams of middle and high school students to engage in improving their own health and the health of their community by creating nutritious, local dishes to inspire school meal programs. 

The teams are coached by local educators, chefs, school nutrition staff, and parents. Every March, the teams gather in the spirit of friendly competition, and each cook up an original recipe in under 90 minutes. Every dish is judged by a panel of food system professionals and advocates, and awards are given out in three categories: taste, teamwork, and use of local ingredients.

After seventeen years, how has this program impacted the lives of participants and coaches? Network Coordinator Dana Hudson spoke with two coaches to learn more. Dave Horner is the Food Service Director of Mount Mansfield Unified Union School District and was a coach from 2009 to 2020. Whitney Machnik is currently a Math and Computer Science Teacher at Montpelier High School and was a coach at Northfield High School in 2010.

What does being a Jr Iron Chef coach mean to you? Why is teaching kids how to cook important to you?

Dave: I love teaching kids how to cook, especially middle school kids. There is such a need for it because most of them don’t get it at home. Jr Iron Chef was a very popular afterschool cooking program. I had fifteen kids in a class all year long. The competition only allowed teams of five, so sometimes I had two teams competing at the same time because there was so much student interest. 

And, I really like mentoring students, helping them learn to cook, and opening their eyes to the possibilities of a culinary career. I was always so impressed with what students could accomplish with a little direction. They pick things up. It was amazing how receptive they were. I had kids make some pretty amazing dishes, dishes that I learned at culinary school.

Whitney: Playing in the kitchen with middle schoolers can be fun. As a math teacher, teaching math isn’t always fun for the class. But cooking was a fun way to connect with the students. We never did that well in the competition, but we were messy and had lots of fun!

In what ways did students grow beyond cooking skills? What were some of the more surprising impacts?

Whitney: You can’t just teach social skills out right. Students have to feel like they belong. Cooking helped them feel like they belonged in a peer group, and I think it was the greatest gift that we could give them. They had fun, and it was cool to be part of it. 

Dave: Many of the kids came from challenging home and family environments. They were sometimes hard to deal with in the classroom. But cooking was a positive thing in their lives. It helped them learn how to interact with each other and build their social skills. I remember, one student thought it was funny to blow pepper in another student’s eyes. He really didn’t seem to understand how that wasn’t a good choice. But he stayed in my program for three years and really got into it. He was talented, and he grew up a lot cooking with me and the other students over the years. 

It's always great to see some students become leaders in the group. Once, when I had two teams getting ready for the competition, I had a family emergency and missed the competition. At the last minute, I had to find a backup coach. I wasn’t sure how it was all going to work, but the students did it. They rose to the challenge and pulled it off on the competition day. 

What connections did Jr Iron Chef VT create for you and your students? 

Dave: Many of the students I worked with helped outside of the afterschool program. We volunteered to cook and serve community dinners in Richmond, put on dinners for the school board, run the snack bar for the basketball games, and had cooking fundraisers. 

It was all very positive, and the whole school got into it. During the school day, student advisory groups came to the kitchen and my students taught them about what they were making. In our afterschool program, kids went home with ingredients and cooked the recipe they just learned for their families. It was good for the school community as a whole.

Burlington School Food Project and Vermont FEED launched Jr Iron Chef VT in 2008, a first-of-its-kind youth program to help kids experience the power of food and recognize their potential as food system changemakers. In 2021, Vermont Afterschool took on overall management and hosting of the competition. Read more about the history of the program and find current program details.