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In Texas, it’s simple: we enjoy our barbecue. There’s all kinds of ways to cook food on a grill and if you’re a chef, it’s important to be familiar with the ways of smoke.

To do that, students need the equipment and the facilities to learn, said chef Laura Trigo, head of the Alvin Community College Culinary Arts program.

“You need the proper equipment,” she said. “ We can do so much more if we have more.”

The ACC Foundation awarded Trigo a $3,000 grant to purchase equipment and refurbish a barbecue pit to be used by Culinary Arts students.

The grant was awarded through the Foundation’s Innovative Initiative program. The Innovative Initiative Grant program is designed to encourage, facilitate, recognize and reward innovative and creative approaches to fulfill the mission of the college. The grants will be used for the 2024-25 academic year.

“Other than a charcuterie course, we don’t have much of a barbecue section,” Trigo said. “I wanted to add that component where they get smoking, barbecuing and grilling because it is so popular in Texas. We need the proper equipment for them to learn that and this is going to be wonderful.”

Whether its Kansas, Carolina or Texas-style barbecue, budding chefs have to know how to grill and smoke food for customers and clients, Trigo said. The new equipment will allow the college to further develop the curriculum for barbecue in the Culinary Arts program.

The current program allows for a one-week section on barbecue and the new equipment will hopefully expand it.

“You get to incorporate this in everything we do whether it’s smoked salmon, wild game or creating hors d’oeuvres,” Trigo said. “You want to get a well-rounded student.”

The skills needed to properly smoke and grill food can take the students much further than what they would learn cooking over a pit in the backyard, Trigo said.

“They can use this for a restaurant setting while some of them want to start a food truck,” she said. “Some of our students want to consider opening a meat market.”