HCEF sponsored a June 3 virtual summit for High School Culinary Educators featuring Chef Mark "Gooch" Noguchi. Twenty-four educators from Kauai, Oahu, Maui and the Big Island participated in the program. The teachers were joined by Department of Education coordinators, HCEF board member Joan Namkoong, and the Punahou High School Principal Dr. Emily McCarren.
Chef Gooch discussed "how does cooking, food, and culinary relate to experiential learning?" He explained that experiential learning uses reflection as the key to the hands-on experience.
Chef Gooch demonstrated saimin and related it to other areas of study including history (plantation-era foods) and science (coagulation of eggs and alkaline noodles).
Chef Noguchi cooks from an ‘āina-based perspective, connecting food to the source and in the process building community. An approach he learned from hula Halau o Kekuhi. His hula experience defined his innovative restaurants like He`eia Kea Pier, MISSION Social Hall & Cafe, and his current Pili Group, a non-traditional food concept interweaving community, education and food. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Mark is a 2019 Omidyar Fellow and a Food & Sustainability Curriculum Specialist at Punahou School.
