The taco renaissance taking the nation by storm is spurred partly by innovative chefs. But Americans seem to have recently realized that just about anything tastes better and is more fun to eat when it’s nestled in a folded tortilla.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC

At the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago, we keep our finger on the pulse of emerging food trends. What’s on the horizon in the taco realm? Fish tacos.

While fish tacos aren’t new, they’re not yet everywhere. After first tasting a Baja fish taco in Mexico, Ralph Rubio returned to San Diego to hand-craft his own recipe and introduced America to the fish taco in 1983. Now with dozens of restaurants in California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, Rubio’s still menus The Original Fish Taco® that started it all: sustainable wild Alaska pollock hand-dipped in seasoned beer batter and cooked to crispy perfection, then topped with Rubio’s white sauce, mild salsa and fresh cabbage and served on a warm stone-ground corn tortilla and garnished with a slice of lime.

A Washburne Culinary Institute instructor wins second prize, and students from Wisconsin and Indiana cook their way to cash awards in the 2012 Discover Duck Chef Recipe Contest.

Duck, a natural fit for today’s global cooking culture, was very evident in the 2012 Maple Leaf Farms Chef Recipe Contest. This year’s contest challenged entrants in two categories—professional chef and culinary student—to produce an original small-plate recipe showcasing Maple Leaf Farms duck. More than 250 entries from across the country were submitted in competition for the cash prizes.

Shane Schaibly doesn’t feel his fondue-specific menu is limiting. So how does the 30-year-old corporate chef of a 140-unit franchise exercise his creativity?

By Lynn Schwartz

“There are few meals left that require guests to interact,” says Shane Schaibly. “Fondue is one. Since it is necessary for the customer to cook at the table, fondue fosters a communal experience.” Schaibly is corporate chef for Front Burner Brands, Inc., a fast-casual restaurant-management company headquartered in Tampa, Fla., which includes The Melting Pot, a premier fondue-restaurant franchise.

“Fondue is both delicious and convivial,” says Schaibly. Plenty of diners must agree. The Melting Pot has more than 140 locations in North America. The niche-specific menu moves beyond the classic Swiss tradition of dipping bread into a central pot of melted cheese, and Schaibly has found a surprising range of creative opportunities for both menu development and teaching.

There are many ways to deepen relationships with those you already know and broaden and appreciate the range of people you talk to and work with. This fall might just be the time to try them.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Last month, we talked about helping students connect with ideas. This month, the focus will be on building or expanding our connections to colleagues, industry partners and other professionals. Since the professionals we know make a real difference in our personal and professional lives—not to mention what we can do in the classroom—the topic seems timely as semesters start again this fall.

When are all salts created equal, and when do they have distinct culinary uses? Here’s a primer on teaching the qualities and characteristics of the world’s most common seasoning.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

I was recently asked to give a presentation at the San Francisco Exploratorium (a hands-on science museum) about salt. During three hours, I had more than 400 people stop at my display and taste salt, discuss different types of salt and question the difference between cooking with salt and finishing food with salt.

The next day, I was reading the March 2012 National Culinary Review, and on page nine it listed 12 food trends for 2012. Number 10 was: “Salt: premium finishing varieties and artisanal presentation.” Something was telling me to write about teaching SALT. 

The Culinary Institute of America now serves only Fair Trade coffee at its Hyde Park campus. Why?

The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is now serving only Fair Trade coffee to students and staff at the Hyde Park, N.Y., campus. For years, the not-for-profit CIA has served Fair Trade-sourced coffee at the five restaurants on campus. Now a custom Fair Trade organic "Chef's Blend" coffee is being used in all the student and staff dining facilities, as well.

Fair Trade @ The CIA, a new student club on campus, raised awareness of the issue among fellow students, faculty and staff over the past few years. Through those students' efforts, the college's food-purchasing department sought out purveyors who could provide Fair Trade coffee in the quantities required on a college campus.

Tulane University School of Medicine and Johnson & Wales University recently announced a groundbreaking long-term collaboration that unites doctors and chefs in improving the nation’s health through the teaching of culinary medicine.

For the first time, a medical school and a major culinary institution plan to implement a fully integrated, comprehensive joint curriculum for doctors, medical students, chefs and the community focused on the significant health role that food choices and nutrition play in preventing and managing obesity and associated diseases in America.

Olson Communications, a full-service agency that specializes in delivering innovative marketing-communication strategy to its portfolio of select food-industry clients, announces the winning recipients of its fifth-annual Chefs of Tomorrow™ grant program for culinary educators.

Austin Yancey, a chef-instructor at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts-Chicago, was selected among postsecondary culinary educators who teach in the City of Chicago to receive a $1,500 grant from Olson Communications’ Chefs of Tomorrow initiative based on juried review of his application and essay. Yancey used the grant to attend the American Culinary Federation’s recent Central Regional Conference in Detroit, at which he competed in two cook-offs against peers and also delivered a cooking demonstration and workshop for chefs and culinary students focusing on current menu trends featuring Idaho-grown potatoes.

The Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, the operator of the Springs Cafe at the Springs Preserve, hosted the First Grade Food Critics, a movement to promote nutrition education, career awareness and academic development among children in at-risk schools, to taste-test two new menu items for the 2012 Summer Food Service Program.

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a federally funded program administered by Nevada’s Department of Education providing free nutritious meals to children in low-income areas Monday through Friday during the summer. The Academy, the largest SFSP sponsor in Nevada, provides meals to community centers, Boys and Girls Clubs, housing developments, and churches in North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Henderson. Last summer the academy prepared 2,300 meals a day (125,000 total meals) and delivered them to 33 sites. The academy has received two Western Region Sunshine Awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: in 2008 for Improving the Nutrition Quality and Appeal of Meals and in 2010 for Increasing Participation and Community Partnerships.

The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York City announces a co-venture with Russian-based Dve Palochki restaurant group to open a series of culinary schools under the name SWISSAM Hospitality Business School. The first school is scheduled to open in St. Petersburg in September 2012 and a second location in Moscow during 2013. The third partner in the SWISSAM venture is IMI, a hospitality college based in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Dve Palochki, which operates more than 35 pan-Asian eateries in Russia, believes that the culinary- and hospitality-education market is underdeveloped in its country. The SWISSAM schools are designed to address that need through training students using curriculum from ICE for careers anywhere in the world, from hotels and resorts to high-end restaurants, caterers and cruise ships.