There’s much more to teaching and learning culinary arts than watching a TV cooking show or an internet video, where anyone can pick up a new recipe.

There’s also picking up garbage or delivering food to those in need; it’s optional, but Jason Peel considers acts of service to be an important part of the curriculum he teaches at Kapiolani Community College.

Peel has always taken the community part of community college seriously. If anything, COVID-19 made it an even bigger point of emphasis. Students in his Asian Pacific Cuisine class are encouraged to help others (safely, of course).

Eight-week culinary arts modules had just started in March, when all University of Hawaii classes went online. The training kitchens at Kapiolani, Leeward and Windward community colleges could no longer be used for classes, and instructors hustled to get ingredients to students and alter lesson plans. Final projects are underway this week and next.

For Peel’s students, that includes an online cooking project today via Zoom. In their own kitchens they’ll spend an hour cooking the same dish. The students will spend another 30 minutes comparing their dishes, then send pictures of their dishes and self-critiques to Peel.

Even given this unique situation, Peel’s adjusted syllabus included a lot more than techniques for how to make dim sum and the perfect bowl of pho.

As an option in his lesson plan for the last week of April, Peel included these suggestions: “Clean up the neighborhood, pick up trash or do something to keep your area clean … Talk to someone who you haven’t talked to in a while (from a distance).” Any other suggestions? Share with your classmates … Write a reflection on what you did and how it made you feel … Neighborhood Foraging … Get to know what grows around you … Take pictures of plants that you see around you …”

Peel wants his students to know there’s more to being a chef than just cooking, and there’s more to the restaurant industry than being a chef. While COVID-19 made teaching the fundamentals more challenging, in another sense it provided a teachable moment — well, actually, not just a moment, but two months.

Plans for teachers and students at all levels were seriously affected by COVID-19 this semester, and it stands to reason that a cooking class — especially one taught in a highly interactive style like Peel’s — would be especially challenging.

Challenges are similar at Leeward Community College, where associate professor Don Maru­yama is program coordinator. Leeward has four lab classes finishing this week.

“It was a real scramble getting them the food,” Maruyama said. “And some students had issues with storing the food. We heard stories that family members would start using the ingredients since they were in the refrigerator at home. Then there was the issue of equipment, whether they even have pots and pans and utensils. We loaned them things, including immersion blenders, saute pans.”

But most adjusted, he said.

“It’s been fairly successful, turned out much better than we anticipated. It was nowhere what they’d learn face-to-face in the kitchen, where the instructor provides feedback immediately.

“The biggest drawback was not being able to taste or smell,” Maruyama said.

There’s no way a weekly Zoom meeting can compare with hands-on, real-time instruction from a seasoned professional.

“I miss being able to work with them one-on-one,” Peel said. “I like to walk the class, call out details I observe, things that are being done wrong so everyone can learn,” he said. “There are so many things that can happen and will happen, and you want to be able to show them the right way.”

The biggest challenge of teaching online? Like Maruyama, Peel said it was supplies: “The food, getting it to them so they can do things hands-on.”

What he didn’t mention is that he did the pickup and delivery of food himself — for 17 students spread out all over Oahu.

“From town all the way to Waianae, all in one day,” said Paul Chan, a student who lives in McCully. “To him, it’s nothing. He would correct my paper, and I look at when he did it and it was 11:30 at night. Plus the restaurant he’s running.”

Peel is also corporate chef of the Sanzoku HospitalityGroup, working with chef Chris Kajioka on restaurant projects.

Peel and Kajioka were set to open Cafe Miro Kaimuki on April 2, but the virus put that on hold. Both threw themselves into other work, including volunteer efforts, and in Peel’s case, his class.

“He would call each of us every two or three days,” Chan said.

These were more than just friendly check-ins; sometimes Peel tested how well they can improvise.

“I call them in groups and post three (order) tickets at a time. They look at it and see if it works. There are variables, like dietary restrictions. Or, I might say, ‘Fire two short ribs.’ … ‘But Chef, I only have one.’ What do you do now?”

Social distancing, however, means this exchange is done with teacher and pupil in different kitchens.“That live pressure is what’s missing,” Peel added. “When they fail, that’s when they learn.”

Chan is one of the students who has fully embraced Peel’s holistic approach.

“He definitely makes us aware of the community aspect,” said Chan, a retired pediatrician, who recently sent greeting cards to staff at a hospital in New York.

“My family and I will be doing deliveries for the (Hawaii) Foodbank.”

Family is why Chan, 61, enrolled at KCC. His wife, Jana, also a pediatrician, died of cancer in 2015. “The day she passed away I was thinking, ‘What is in the freezer?’”

When he looked, he found that Jana had left three big food storage bags of chicken and turkey stock, some of which is still in the freezer today.

“I had no talent for cooking. I had to learn what to do with it,” he said. “I always tell my friends who are doctors that this is just like an organic chemistry lab. I’m kind of a nerd and want to know why things happen, like how a dish is altered by not just what you put in it, but when.”

Chan’s teammates in Peel’s class, Verna Ramos and Mark Lopez, are also nontraditional students. Lopez is double-majoring in culinary arts and engineering, and Ramos has a nursing degree from UH-Manoa. They’ve taken to Peel’s guidance in class and out.

Like Chan, Ramos, 40, went to culinary school because of the death of a loved one. Her mother, Rose, did almost all of the household cooking.

“My responsibilities changed when my mom passed away five years ago,” she said. “I never really had to do anything in the kitchen before. But I love eating, and I had to assume responsibility. Going into culinary was scary, but it’s satisfying. It kind of hits both science and art for me, and I like that.”

Ramos was disappointed to miss out on face-to-face instruction this spring. But like everyone else, she adapted.

“Online is great in some ways, like you don’t have to get up early. But that’s superficial. I was looking forward to putting on the uniform and getting scolded. … I had another class, and it was such a rush. That’s the thing that’s kind of lacking.”