My context and issue

Student 1: For our CREST project, we were asked to develop a novel luxury dessert, and we decided to name our project Project Lusso, which is luxury in Italian, and we decided to make panna cotta and make it vegan.

Student 2: So, this year I’m working on destitute gourmet as my main goal. I’m doing it under the context of culinology which is a mix of culinary arts, food technology, and nutritional science. So we are trying to have a project that incorporates all of these things – so we are looking at the development, as well as the research, as well as artistic flair and presentation.

Student 3: My project this year is an all-natural product, so I have developed a muesli bar that has no additives and is additive free. Well, I was looking at supermarket products that have, are bought, on a regular basis by students around the school, and the main one that everyone in the common room had was muesli bars. And we were discussing how much additives are affecting people and like what more research was going into them about the side effects of them, and so I decided that I was going to try make one completely additive free so that there’s reassurance that there may definitely not be side effects.

Student 1: For the CREST project, we were given a brief by our mentor and it asked us to make a luxury novel dessert that was aimed at women aged 30 to 40 and had to be chilled or frozen.

Student 2: So, I’m trying to find a menu that is low cost but still has benefits or is still gourmet. So, I’m planning an event for school, which is called Dine Below the Line, which I am doing as part of the Ethics Committee, which is looking at world hunger and how we can sort of raise awareness for that if you like. So we’re making a menu for under the poverty line, the extreme poverty line, which is the equivalent of $2.50 in New Zealand. So that’s been quite a challenge just to get a menu that actually is quite reasonable but also cost effective.

Student 1: We had lots of initial ideas like mousse and chocolate pudding, and we decided in the end to make panna cotta. And the brief also stated that we have to have an allergen free claim, and so we decided to try and make it vegan. And, our stakeholders are Mrs Sehji our teacher, as she’s in the age range, and our mentor Sarah Beaton, who comes in to try our panna cotta, and our classmates are also our stakeholders as we ask them for feedback.

Student 2: The costing is a big thing. Originally, I was going to do a three course menu and then I was like, wow that is quite a push, so I changed it to a two course menu. I’ve had a lot of trouble trying to incorporate nutritional benefits while still lowering the cost because obviously if you add components you raise the cost, but you need to add components to get that nutritional benefit. So I’ve just been tossing and turning trying to find a right a right ratio of things to incorporate.

Student 3: The main problem that I had in my project was the base ingredients. So I had to go back to basics and make most of my own, or buy organic products that had no additives. So things like honey I had to buy organic because a lot of the unorganic ones had additives that kept, preserved them. And so things like peanut butter as well, I was going to make my own but found that that was going to be a rather large task on top of already making my own muesli bar, so again I went organic. But I did have to make my own chocolate, which I used cacao, cacao instead of chocolate, because chocolate has very high levels of additives and preservatives and other things that were just way out of my brief, so I made my own.

Student 2: I’ve been looking at a lot of different options for my menu. Rice is definitely a staple because it’s just so cost effective and it’s just a really good carbohydrate source. So yeah, rice is my main, so I’ve got a rice dish that has got the focus of iron. So it involves just a whole lot of different components. I’ve got chickpeas and broccoli and tomatoes in there, so it’s just a bit of an iron boost.