DOWAGIAC — The rich aroma of seasoned beef wafted through the hallway outside of Room 301 at Dowagiac Union High School Thursday morning.

Inside, a group of students busily chatted amongst each other in front of the stovetop ovens inside the classroom. While one group of young men peeled some potatoes, a few feet away, a trio worked together to prepare a pot of mashed veggies, one teenager pouring in milk while one of his classmates whisked the white, buttery fluff.

The smooth clip the student-chefs were working at was suddenly interrupted, however, when the stovetop beneath one of the sauté pans suddenly burst into flames, after some butter from the metal ware spilled onto the heating element.

In spite the commotion, senior Brenden Dudley quickly leapt into action. The student grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher instead of a cup of water — as hydration only causes grease fires to spread — and handed it to teacher Andy Kruger, who used the red device to put out the blaze is short order.

“That was the first fire we’ve had this year — and hopefully the last one, as well,” Kruger said, after giving a celebratory high five to one of his students.

Flames aside, Thursday was just another day in the kitchen for Kruger’s Culinary Arts class, which has become the school’s most popular elective course since its introduction the curriculum in the fall.

Kruger, a longtime health teacher at the high school, worked with school administrators to get the cooking course up and running, as the school added an extra class period to the schedule to give students space for additional elective courses. With traditional home economics courses (now referred to as “family and consumer sciences”) being phased out by many school districts these days, Dowagiac is almost on the cutting edge by resurrecting a dedicated cooking course, Kruger said.

“Young people need to know the basics,” he said. “It’s kind of getting lost these days.”

While he was initially apprehensive about teaching a culinary arts class — as he had never done so before — Kruger said that his students have embraced the course, often suggesting different recipes and projects they can work on without much prompting, the teacher said.

Over the last several months, the class has learned how to create a number of dishes from scratch, including pizza, banana bread and popcorn.

The students are often divided into teams for their projects and compete with each other to see which group can create the best dish. Last December, a team of students who created the best chili had the chance to compete in a chili cook-off at Lake Michigan College, where they received third place.

This week, the students were competing to see which team could create the best meatloaf. After devising their recipes, the students spend the last several days mixing their meat, spices and sauces together, before shaping the mix into a mold and baking it in the oven. For a side dish, the students made mashed potatoes.

On Friday, the class will sit down to enjoy their home cooked dishes, and to reflect on how they did, Kruger said.

Among the student chefs in the class is sophomore Desiree Raab, who was working with three other classmates to make a cheeseburger meatloaf, she said. Though the student said she is not much a meatloaf eater herself, she said she is interested in tasting their results.

Raab said that, before enrolling Kruger’s culinary arts class, she had not had much experience in the kitchen outside of preparing frozen pizzas. In spite her lack of prior knowledge in cooking, she has enjoyed learning more about food — especially a few weeks ago, when the students competed against Matt Macquillan’s health class in a Christmas cookie bake-off.

Raab said she plans to continue to cook after high school. With many teenagers like herself used to eating mostly fast food or prepared dishes from a box, learning how to prepare dishes from fresh, healthy ingredients has been life changing, she said.

“More kids should be exposed to these kinds of classes,” Raab said.