Field trip ideas for middle school food prep class

My food prep teacher is looking for some places to take her class on field trips, either to restaurants who will give them a look behind the scenes, culinary schools, or commercial production. I'm sure she'd welcome guest speakers too. Her two classes total 23 8th grade students (13 - 14 years old).

Some places on her list to check into:

Triton
Kendall
French Pastry School
the local McDonald's
McDonald's corporate
Mars factory on Oak Park Ave
Jelly Belly (I know students toured there several years ago. Is it even still there?)
Turano bakery

Any other suggestions? Any contacts that might help her out? Interested in hosting our kids?

HI,

Jelly Belly tours are now conducted just over the border in Wisconsin.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

Jelly Belly tours are now conducted just over the border in Wisconsin.

Regards,

They're incredibly awful, though. It's not a factory tour, just a tour of their warehouse. And then you get to the "factory store" and the only deal is the belly flops -- seconds. The normal jelly bellies are more expensive than at Woodman's on the way home.

What about Filbert's? If you can go on a day when they're doing actual bottling it would be especially awesome, although I don't know if health/safety codes would allow tours then -- Sprecher only seems to allow tours when the bottling line is inactive.

I assume you're headed to a farm at some point? I'm sure razbry would be glad to have you at upsberries; I also wonder if seeing the 4H stuff at Wagner Farm might be interesting to middle schoolers. Sweet Collective (honey) mentioned to us that they might be able to take a field trip.

Green Grocer?

Hi,

Chicago Foodways Roundtable had a tour of Connie's Pizza that was pretty informative. Follow the link for the details, location and whom to contact.

A tour of Maxwell Street Market on a Sunday is always interesting.

Primrose Farms in St. Charles is a depression era farm with a working wood burning stove. Nearby is Garfield Farms which is a farm circa 1846 with hearth cooking kitchens.

On the professional board, someone recently stated there are one-hour tours of the Vienna Sausage Factory. Time it right, you can meet ChicagoStyleDog teaching people how to work carts.

Regards,

<smacks head> Farms. duh. Thanks for mentioning. Great suggestions all around. Keep em coming.

(U-Pick Map.)I think there's one somewhere on the South Side that is educational in some way - and the Botanic Gardens has some kind of specialty program.

Eli's Cheescake Factory Tour?

They went to Eli's last year and didn't have a great experience. I think they may have had some equipment issues that day or something. Thanks for the suggestion.

I know that our preschool went to some chain pizzeria in Evanston: Giordanos? Edwardos? and they let the kids "make" a pizza - pat out the dough, top it, etc. and then eat it. I would imagine they could do something appropriate for middle schoolers.

I also know Whole Foods offers culinary birthday parties, I'd bet they could come up with something.