French cooking classes
If you have always considered yourself to be a bit of a cordon bleu cook, but have never attended French cooking classes, you may be interested in knowing that French cooking classes are alive and well and, what’s more, they are right here in Gauteng. Just a couple of kilometres from the main highway that joins Pretoria with Johannesburg in the Centurion suburb of Hennopspark is the Prue Leith College of Food and Wine. This cordon bleu college was started back in 1996 in an effort to stem the shortage of highly motivated and expert staff that had emerged in the catering industry. The Prue Leith College was started by a couple of Gauteng businessmen, Tiny Barnetson and Graham Ledger with the aim of stemming the shortage in the industry.
Students may apply to join the college only if they have passed their Matric exam and have reached the age of eighteen. They must also fill in a questionnaire and attend an interview. If successful they will start the Diploma Course in either January or July and remain at the college for a year and a half – a total of three semesters. The course content is extremely comprehensive, both academically and on the practical side. Lessons are not just concerned with cooking, but with all the aspects of running a restaurant as a business, and so there are lessons in Finance and Management, Hygiene and even Professional Ethics. A lot of emphasis is put on South African dishes since most of the students will end up in some part of the South African catering industry, however, there are also specialist classes in bush cooking, Thai and Indian cooking and French cooking classes.
The College is set in the old manor house in Lyttleton, and in the grounds is the college’s very own restaurant, Prue Leith’s. The restaurant is open to the public five nights a week and diners can take advantage of what the students have learnt in their French cooking classes. From very early on during their course students are required to work in the restaurant – they meet and seat diners, take orders, prepare, cook and serve meals all under the supervision of the restaurant manager. More senior students take the rolls of Maître d’Hotel and Wine Steward. But the restaurant is not the only place that the students gain valuable workplace experience. During their third semester they spend six months at a leading catering establishment, usually an hotel, restaurant or game lodge. This is usually in South Africa but can be as far away as Ireland or Dubai.
Still more experience is gained in the college boma, where there are practical classes in bush cooking and Pan African cuisine. The boma is in the college grounds and seats 24.
A recent addition to practical work was introduced in 2005 when a subsidiary, Prue Leith Catering, was started up. Prue Leith Catering is a couple of kilometres from the college and set in an industrial estate. The company has a new industrial kitchen with state of the art equipment. Students help out both in the kitchen and at catering venues taken on by the company. By the time they graduate, French cooking classes will be a thing of the past, and students at the Prue Leith College will have a thorough knowledge of the catering industry.
