Starting her life in Poland, Martyna Siebold has always been interested in food, so much so that after moving to the U.S. she taught kindergarteners how to cook. Now, she’s ultimately reaching her goal of teaching high school students.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: What got you started with culinary?
MS: I’ve always been very passionate about cooking, since I was a little girl. I started off having a different type of a career. I used to be an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher, actually teaching non-native speakers English. But, I’ve always been so passionate about food and nutrition that it made me start my studies all over again. I got my degree in food and nutrition, and from there, I just started doing all things related to culinary. I worked with a dietitian at some point, designing diets. I had a small catering business at some point. Then, I moved on to teaching preschool kids how to cook. And then from there, I just learned that culinary arts can be taught at a high school level, so that was a perfect fit for me.
Q: What was it like teaching preschoolers?
MS: It was very chaotic, but also very heartwarming because at the time, I had just became a mom. It was like allowing me to get the experiences from home and mirror that with my students. It was really amazing to work with little kids, and the fact that they were interested in cooking and learning about food at such a young age was really amazing. So while it was chaotic, it was very precious. And I see them now as older kids several years later, and they still like cooking, so I think I did something right.
Q: Are you the only one in your family who is involved in culinary arts?
MS: No, I come from a family of teachers, but then my dad was the outlier because he decided to have his own businesses. He had a couple of different restaurants, so I had firsthand experience with how food service operations work. And then everyone in my family was very passionate about cooking, so I was always there helping my mom, my dad and my grandparents. My grandparents also would have their own fruit and vegetable gardens, so I would witness how they prepared all of these homemade food preserves and whatnot. It always got me very inspired and excited about cooking.
Q: To you, is it a hobby or a career?
MS: It’s both. I love my job, I like to go to sleep and I think about food, and I wake up and I’m thinking, what am I going to make today? When I’m at work, I’m cooking with students, and then I’m thinking, what am I going to make at home? So I’m obsessed with this, which is great, because I feel like it really helps me be one step ahead of what’s going to happen next, like, ‘What is the recipe I am going to introduce to my culinary students next? What are the things I could possibly make them excited about?’ I think that it’s very important to have passion for what you do and I feel like a big part of being a successful culinary arts teacher is having that mindset of, ‘I am not satisfied with a recipe I made five years ago.’ I want the students to follow the trends. I want them to explore the culinary arts and experiment with the different recipes.
Q: What’s your favorite part about teaching high schoolers?
MS: Honestly, I think it’s the maturity of the students and also their passion for food. I feel like at this age, students have the set of skills necessary to really have a good basis for what they do, and also, I feel like I have a lot of influence on the career pathways they decide to pursue in the future. As the majority of students will take the culinary arts as an elective, there are some students who really consider it as a career pathway. I feel it’s very important to provide them with the background knowledge and all the skills necessary to be successful in that regard. I think that’s probably what I like the most about this, that I can directly influence those young minds and their perception of what they want to do in the future, and also inspire them to keep trying new foods.