As the Calistoga Elementary School student body filed from the multipurpose room following their winter break musical Dec. 19, a voice boomed over the loudspeaker: “GATE students, don’t forget to report to the kitchen for your Kitchen Basics class ... right now.”

Half a dozen kids began filing into the school’s kitchen, where, with the help of Calistoga school district food services director Holly Triglia, they donned hats — toques that looked like tall white chimneys — and aprons and prepared them for the evening’s exercise, to make a pot of soup from a small collection of veggies chosen by Culinary Institute of America graduate Maria DiGiulio.

“I think the toques are really important,” said GATE instructor Drew Sparks. “It really puts them into the mood to become little chefs. Especially when they have someone like Maria there to guide them along.”

The students, fifth-graders, were the last of a series of classes educating third- through sixth-grade students in kitchen basics. Each class participates in a series of four classes each.

“In the first class we really try to focus on teaching them good hygiene and safety in the kitchen,” said DiGiulio. “Then we start to sample various fresh herbs and dried spices, many of which the students may have never experienced in their lives.”

The students are encouraged to sample by smelling, tasting and even mixing the spices, both savory and sweet, to familiarize them with the ingredients they’ll be using to create something wonderful they’ll be able to share with their families at home. On the menu this last day of school before Christmas break was a hearty vegetable soup, not holiday sweets, cookies or cakes.

“We’ve really focused on using vegetables and fruits that are in season,” DiGiulio said. “We’ve mostly used them raw, but we’ve done some cooking, too.”

This particular group of students seemed eager to get the class rolling, especially since they only had about an hour to wash, slice, dice, chop, cook and sample their soup made from a medium-sized leek, about two handfuls of green string beans, an onion, two potatoes and some kale, or Swiss chard — not exactly a list of ingredients one might associate automatically with kids’ imaginations.

DiGiulio carefully guided the students through a tutorial of each of the veggies. Most had no idea what a chard was, for example, or a leek for that matter. They all knew about the smelly onion, and were happy to work with it, so happy in fact, it brought tears to their eyes.

Using sharp knives, they were taught the proper way to slice into an onion. Joseph Rees experimented with holding two pieces of dried bread, called croutons, between his lips to ward off the teary effects of the onion. It didn’t work, said Joseph, munching the croutons and wiping tears from his cheek with the back of his sleeve. The leek, Swiss chard and potatoes were similarly butchered and all of that poured into a pan and slid into a pot of water on the stove.

While that was cooking the young chef candidates sampled — sniffed, tasted and felt — the remaining ingredients, about a quarter cup of Italian spices, like sweet basil, oregano, thyme and powdered garlic and a healthy dose of EVOO, the TV chef Rachel Ray’s nomenclature for extra virgin olive oil, which they later added to the boiling veggies.

As the soup cooked the combined scent of the ingredients floated into the school’s parking lot and the public sidewalk, literally causing passersby to inhale deeply and savor the smell of homecoming.

“This a very simple recipe that the kids can make themselves at home as part of their family meal,” Sparks said. “Not only does this series teach kids some kitchen basics, but it encourages the kids to contribute to the family dinner, and brings the family together once again to the dinner table — which seems so foreign these days, when everyone has other things to do.”

Some 25 minutes after the stove was fired up, Maria carefully scooped helpings of the savory soup into a blender and turned it on. The swift whirring of the machine magically transformed the bits and pieces of vegetables into a thick, creamy soup, although no cream was used. She scooped the hot product of their teamwork into bowl after bowl to be carefully sipped and — get this — enjoyed, totally, by the kids.

“I think they were amazed by what they had done,” Sparks said. “They were also surprised by the amount of soup they made with so few ingredients.”

“It’s good, really, really good,” said Lindsey Avina. “I’m going to make this at home for my family.”

At the end of the class series, the students who participated will be given a cookbook of all the things they’ve learned, Sparks said.

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