New survey reveals the focus of today’s culinary education

A new study by Culinary Visions^® Panel surveyed culinary educators and students about topics, techniques and trends that are being taught in culinary-arts programs around the country. 

Culinary instructors feel that local and sustainableare the menu-development imperatives for today’s chef to understand. Classic preparation methods are important, yet modern cooking techniques are also on the curriculum.

Today’s culinary students are learning about traditional and unconventional foodservice venues and working with ingredients from around the world to gain an understanding of authentic ethnic and ethnic-inspired foods. Students are also being challenged to create delicious menus that hit important health and wellness goals.

Following are trends that industry professionals believe are important to culinary students:

A veteran culinary educator recalls mingling among “the beautiful people” at the last annual TomatoFest.

By Jim Gallivan, MAT, CCA, CCP, CFBE

Several years ago, I agreed to write a column every two weeks for the Dover Post News. The idea was to bring up some new and intriguing food topics for the community, and to stimulate interest in Atlantic Culinary Academy in Dover, N.H., as a viable academic entity.

The first article, “Foods in the Attic,” was about heirloom produce, specifically tomatoes, and was written prior to my 16^th-annual pilgrimage to TomatoFest in Carmel, Calif.—the premier heirloom-tomato event in the world.

Constant readers know that I now work for The Art Institute of Atlanta. (Say “Atlanna.”) And heirloom tomatoes continue the mystery. Wherever they are grown—with variants of soil, weather, water—they all implicate and intrigue. So, another journey westward for TomatoFest No. 17.

TomatoFest is an invitational event. While I reveled in being one of the 65 chosen ones (mostly chefs from the Monterey Peninsula and the Bay Area),I did enjoy being one of“Inner Circle.”  What that meant is that I saw colleagues from the very beginnings of the event, and enjoyed a few fringe benefits, as well.

Following up on last month’s inspiration to teach curiosity by capitalizing on the five “W”s, this month Dr. Mayo reveals three additional strategies.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

This month is the second installment of suggestions for encouraging curiosity in students. Last month, we talked about inviting them to lead critiques of food, asking them to ask questions about what they are doing in class, and inviting them to consider what could be done differently each time they do something. These strategies keep their minds active and promote both curiosity and creativity along with critical thinking.

This month, we will discuss three other strategies that are part of good teaching, but can be particularly useful in promoting curiosity.

Controversy
One very effective way to encourage curiosity is to create some discrepancy about something that is being taught or discussed. Since you want different perspectives, give students various roles to play in the discussion of some concept. They will investigate it and think about it more profoundly since they know that there will be several points of view. The benefit is that they will consider more aspects of the topic knowing that they have to debate it.

Cal Poly Pomona Hospitality Management professor Dr. John Self has been selected to be a Fulbright Scholar at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, Finland. He will teach abroad from August through November.

Self is the first professor from Cal Poly Pomona’s Collins College of Hospitality Management to take part in the Fulbright Program. He will teach hospitality-management classes with an American pedagogy rooted in polytechnic, hands-on student-based learning. He will also conduct research on why restaurants fail—to compare with his U.S.-based research on the same topic.

Self looks forward to offering his American style of teaching to Finnish students while also gaining a broader view of teaching and student learning to bring back to Cal Poly Pomona. “I love peeling back the onion of a new culture,” he said. “Four months is long enough that you’re not treated like a tourist.”

Similar to Cal Poly Pomona, Haaga-Helia University offers a hands-on education. Its Hospitality, Tourism and Experience Management program parallels The Collins College of Hospitality Management in many ways, like by bridging theory and practice to offer students a well-rounded education.

The 13^th-annual Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival presented by FOOD & WINE, which took place Feb. 20-23, 2014, featured more than 250 of the industry’s leading winemakers, spirits producers, chefs and culinary personalities who entertained and educated approximately 60,000 passionate gourmands and aficionados during this star-studded, four-day destination event. This year's Festival raised more than $2 million for the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management and Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center at Florida International University.

Emmi Roth USA, an award-winning producer of specialty cheeses, has announced the winner of its Grand Cru® Recipe Contest for Postsecondary Culinary Students. Caroline Ausman of Burlington, Wis., took top honors with her recipe for Manicotti en Croûte with Brandied Fig Sauce.

The contest, presented in conjunction with the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ), challenged postsecondary culinary students to create a flavorful and creative pasta recipe highlighting Roth Grand Cru, a washed-rind Alpine-style cheese crafted in Wisconsin.

Ausman is currently enrolled as a student at The Art Institute of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and is pursuing an associate degree in baking and pastry. She attributes her culinary and pastry passion to working alongside her mother in the family kitchen while growing up.

“I truly feel at home in the kitchen, working with my hands and creating from scratch. This contest was an amazing opportunity for me to showcase what I love doing,” said Ausman. “Although developing the recipe was a tremendous, and sometimes challenging, process, I really learned a lot!”

Imagine working side by side with a top caterer in Seattle, helping with the grape harvest for the oldest continuously operating, family-owned winery in California, or experiencing farm-to-table initiatives on a farm in Hawaii. These opportunities and others are available to women working in the food, beverage and hospitality industries through the 2014 Les Dames d’Escoffier International (LDEI) Legacy Awards. 

Established in 2009, each LDEI Legacy Award offers a one-week workplace experience to non-Dame women in the United States, U.K. and Canada. Award recipients will work alongside some of the culinary and hospitality industry’s top women professionals, all members of LDEI, an international organization of women leaders in food, beverage and hospitality whose mission is education and philanthropy.

For an application, log on to www.LDEI.org and click on 2014 Legacy Awards. Deadline to apply is April 21, 2014.

Six awards will be offered in five categories: one each in Culinary, Pastry, Wine, Food/Wine Journalism and two experiences in Farm-to-Table. The professional experience programs include:

·      Culinary-Catering with Lisa Dupar, Lisa Dupar Catering in Seattle.

·      Entrepreneurship-Pastry for Production with Shari Carlson of Dessert Dreams, Dallas

·      Wine with Carolyn Wente, Wente Family Estates in Livermore, Calif.

·      Food/Wine Journalism at Good Housekeeping magazine with Susan Westmoreland and Sharon Franke, New York City

·      Two Farm-to-Table with Judith Winfrey, Love is Love Farm, and Charlotte Swancy, Riverview Farms, in Atlanta. And one on the Big Island of Hawaii with Lesley Hill and Wailea Agricultural Group

Award winners will be reimbursed for airfare and hotel accommodations for six nights for up to US$2,000. Winners will be announced in early June and 

As educators, we cannot not ignore what consumers of education seek. So why do many in education assume that teaching and training are mutually exclusive?

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

The more I researched for this article the more frustrated—and, at times, angry—I became. It appears that there are still many in the field of education who believe teaching and training are mutually exclusive.

To some, the term “training” was not even part of the larger umbrella of education. It was somehow beneath the concept of educational development. In a letter to the editor of the National Forum: Phi Kappa Phi Journal, Spring 2000, Robert H. Essenhigh of Ohio State University states: “There is another major pressure coming into universities, and particularly state universities. It is the increasing insistence—particularly from state governments (with the associated control of the money)—that students, when they leave, must be able to walk into some job without any further training.” He continues: “… universities are not in the business of training. Their business is educating.”

Mark Ladner, executive chef of Del Posto in New York, tells CIA grads to always be students and remain curious.

Mark Ladner, executive chef and partner of the Michelin-starred Del Posto and two other Italian restaurants in New York City, delivered the commencement address at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y., on Feb. 7. He told the 46 graduates that he pursued a career in culinary arts after he “discovered” chickpeas at a restaurant salad bar as a child and thought, “What else is out there that I haven’t tried?”

“As you start your journey, don’t lose sight of what inspired you to start to cook,” Ladner advised recipients of associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts. “Don’t forget your chickpea. Continue to be curious. Choose to always be a student, because the most wonderful epiphany can be found around any corner.”

For starters, temperature and heat are not the same thing. When is convection mechanical, and when is it natural? And is food cooked by radiation harmful? Chef Weiner explains why all culinary students should understand the basic science behind critical processes in the kitchen.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

Last month I raised the debate about teaching cooking science to students. My personal opinion is that there are a few science principles students need to know:

1. The only way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you burn. I realize that this is not technically cooking science. However, more and more pressure is being foisted upon the foodservice industry to help solve the obesity crisis. Students must be taught that sooner or later, they, their families and the customers of where they work must pay the piper when it comes to calories—and that this is a matter of personal responsibility.