Full-Course COOKING CLASSES In an economy sagging like a disobedient souffle, some culinary instructors are adjusting their techniques to attract students. But you can still find a class for every taste.

Cooking schools and classes, like so many aspects of America's troubled economy, are in flux.

Among the culinary teachers manning the stoves, some seem to be doing well. A few have closed their doors - sometimes temporarily and for a variety of reasons - and still others are changing their approach.

They are finding new ways to attract and hold students, especially two key segments of the population - older, often retired people looking to improve neglected cooking skills or socialize, and young marrieds who never learned to cook, often because their parents didn't cook, either.

And for the one in four American adults who are single, and often live alone, learning to do more than reheat food in the microwave or cook more than spaghetti, steak or burgers can make the difference between existing and living well.

For everyone, cooking classes can provide both affordable dining and an entertaining education.

Two major schools opened near Philadelphia last year - the Viking Culinary Arts Center in Bryn Mawr and Celebrity Kitchens in Wilmington. Each offers almost daily classes on a wide range of subjects.

The Viking center, one of 12 such cooking school/retail stores around the country, sells Viking cookware, cutlery and small appliances, along with gourmet condiments and other fancy foods. (Viking's high-end major appliances - ranges, refrigerators and such - are displayed in a showroom next door.)

A theater-style demonstration area and multi-station participation cooking school are the backdrop for 10 to 16 classes most weeks. Most are taught by staff, with occasional guest chefs.

This fall's visiting instructors include authors Dianne Phillips (The Ultimate Rotisserie Cookbook), Ethel Hofman (The Art of Cooking), and Nick Malgieri (Perfect Cakes). Riki Senn, former director of the Greenbrier Cooking School, also will direct a session.

Last autumn, there was some trepidation among organizers of existing programs that these new schools, along with high-profile classes at Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table stores, would soak up much of a limited market.

All this competition may not have helped the smaller schools, but it hasn't done the serious damage feared.

Still, noncredit classes best described as "community outreach" are fewer in number this fall. The Culinary School at the Art Institute of Philadelphia has added a new diploma Baking and Pastry program but suspended its community classes.