Culinary educators are in a knowledge lane all their own. They are experts in cooking: a topic many people know something about and some of these non-professional cooks believe they are experts. Instructors are teaching students who think they can expertly cook from the reels, TikTok videos and television shows they have watched. It seems like everyone knows about the culinary field, even when they may not be an expert. 

Where do culinary educators turn when they have a question? Who helps the expert educators? That is where CAFÉ arrives to pass on functional culinary education tidbits and knowledge. Each month CAFÉ posts the Gold Medal Classroom, an online magazine dedicated to the special knowledge-lane of culinary educators. Articles feature topics ranging from teaching the art of charcuterie to global flavor fusion to trending portable pastries. A culinarian’s dedicated space for expert information on foodservice education. 

Below instructors will find stories featuring pedagogy, ingredients, culinary trends, sustainability, and articles written by expert program directors and instructors. A plethora of articles that help incredible instructors expertly drive in a lane all their own – culinary education.          

FEATURES

Teaching and Student stories:

• Developing empathy in culinary students by understanding others’ experiences. A cultural lesson in empathy helps tackle the real empathy decline in the American public.
• How teaching skiing taught me to be a better culinary arts instructor. Better teaching skills: engaging in the transfer of knowledge.
• Discovering a willingness to motivate and change. Engaging in different actions to enhance student learning. Are you ready for it?
• Teaching the building block basics of soup is good for the soul and culinary students’ education. Building students’ confidence by stacking one foundational concept onto the next.
• Teaching Knowledge Tactics: Driving the learning cycle through connection and communication.
• Deciphering Learning Styles and Unlocking Education (Part One). VARK assessment translates students’ learning styles into beneficial modalities. 
• Deciphering learning styles and unlocking education (Part Two). Planning effective lessons based on learning styles from learning environments to classroom and homework activities.
• Are you a pastry instructor teaching chocolate? Are you explaining umami to students? Are you a culinary arts director considering curriculum changes?CAFÉ can help with that.
• Lesson plan resources: Investigate quality digital resources to update lesson plans designed specifically for the culinary arts educator.
• A lesson plan for evaluating fruit product formats:: Teach students how to evaluate different fruit product formats including fresh cut, frozen and canned for menu development.
• Teaching modern students an often-underappreciated craft: charcuterie. With tight margins and differentiation a challenge, creating high-quality, house-made charcuterie isn’t just a culinary skill—it's a valuable business asset.
• Start the year off right:: Strategies and tactics that create respect, interest and positive attributes throughout the year. 
• Instilling business skills throughout the curriculum: Emily Willardson designed several business opportunities for students that cemented pride, business skills and a deepening culinary spirit.
• Creative thinking drives possibilities in culinary education. Conference session unleashes ideas focusing on reshaping the future of culinary arts education.

Ingredients:

• Three expert chefs offer a detailed tour through Asian cuisine (Part One) Gain insights on ingredients, flavors and dishes indicative of East and Southeast Asia.
• Global flavor fusion teaching fundamentals (Part Two). Understanding a specific cuisine’s ingredients drives teaching flavor-mashing secrets and avoids cultural appropriation.
• Chefs weigh in on top culinary teaching topics for Asian cuisine. Professional culinarians highlight flavor’s building blocks as key to understanding global food.
• Pork and fruit – the best of two vast worlds. Learn the complex answer behind why pork and fruit complement each other. 
• Bronze die-cut pasta worth the groove. Shaping the perfect pasta from mouthfeel to texture to taste.
• Dragon fruit flying into foodservice produce: Vibrant colors and sweet flavor make dragon fruit a hot commodity.
• Fruit’s beauty and versatility across menus: Adding fruit to sweet and savory applications teaches students the benefits of fruit in all its formats.
• Updating breadmaking from seed to slice: Changing yeast varieties and grain types takes an ages-old process into the modern world.

Trends:

• McCormick® unveils Flavor Forecast 24th Edition and 2024 Flavor of the Year. Tamarind is up and coming while McCormick makes three world flavor predictions.
• The reality of high-volume catering. Uncovering the details and challenges of serving thousands of guests.
• Global cuisine fusion case study: New cuisine combination reflects the diversity of its consumers and concept.
• Partnerships driving technical education forward: Educational partnerships in Dickinson, ND, turned deserted oil company headquarters into innovative educational facility fulfilling workforce needs.
• Portable pastries make meals: Opportunities for bakers to help hungry consumers craving hearty meals.

Sustainability:

• The Food Donation Improvement Act: New act expands liability protections for food donors and encourages food businesses – including schools and non-profit organizations – to donate.
• Recovering food waste - how an action plan came to fruition. CIA’s Robert Perillo shares his journey planning and implementing a food waste recovery program that donated over 121,000 pounds of food since its inception.
• Educating rising culinarians about food donation: A comprehensive lesson plan focusing on discussing and comprehending food waste and how it can be curbed through donation.
• Waste Not Want Not: an Earth Day initiative. Actively encourage students to participate in and create food waste reduction and upcycling activities.

Miscellaneous:

• Free sustainability, agricultural system professional development opportunity for high school instructors. Online courses and four-day immersive summer workshop included in the training program offered by New Mexico State University.
• Meet the Grower: Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella, Inc. of Terra Bella, Calif.
• Meet the Grower: Pecans in a Nutshell – Pecan trees can take seven years from planting to finally produce nuts. Farmers need to plan – sometimes 35 years ahead – and that is just what the Ivey family did in West Texas.
• Meet the Grower: Getting to know a fishmonger – Learn about high-grade line-caught Pacific fresh fish from a fishmonger.
• Innovating the Future: CAFÉ invites educators to San Antonio for two informative and exciting gatherings: The Deans and Directors Retreat and the Leadership Conference.
• Conference caters to culinary arts educators: AI opportunities, foodservice trends and workforce readiness covered during annual culinary instructor gathering.
• CAFÉ names 2024 culinary education award recipients. Ten culinary education leaders and a college student recognized for innovative approaches and positive impacts on culinary education.
• Restaurant industry’s future shines as Delaware and California take prizes at 2024 National ProStart Invitational.

COLUMNS

Future Thinking in Education (Formerly Think Tank):

• When ordinary is acceptable how to push and pull through to exceptional.
• Creating a change mindset in culinary education. Then why are people so resistant?
• Think Tank Column Rebrands Itself: Future Thinking in Education. New column name helps envision culinary education’s future with insight and opportunities. 
• Good to Great: Creating a 20-year vision.
• An evolving college education: challenging culinary education norms to create an exceptional 21st-century model.
• Viewing students’ education differently. Engage students rather than focusing on content volume in culinary education.
• Making the most out of CAFÉ conferences – the lasting benefits of planning and managing your time with an open mind during in-person meetings. June July 
• Change your approach to kitchen fundamentals by re-thinking curriculum and making confidence the end game.
• Teach the trainer – train the teacher. Training and teaching must be ongoing for instructors – for those who educate in a classroom and those who teach in a professional kitchen.
• The role of collaboration results in the freedom to innovate.
• Lifelong learning is like riding a bike. Discovering the desire for excellence drives the need to learn and improve.

Guest Speaker:

• Creating a mock walk-in cooler activity with boxes and food pictures helps students understand storage requirements, final cooking temperatures or even FIFO concepts.
• Being on both sides of the mock interview process helps students get a feel for the real world.
• Teach students how to articulate and relate the differences in how food tastes, smells and feels.
• In search of grandmothers’ recipes – finding and cooking family recipes is like discovering childhood comfort and peace.
• Drink your poison – Illustrating sodium and sugar levels in students’ beverages is eye-opening when discussing healthy beverage options.
• A place for everything and everything in its place. Teach the benefits of mise en place from day one.
• Teaching perfect combinations of butter and biscuits. Butter as fat creates better biscuits and helps teach students how and when to bake with butter.
• Teaching yield quantity from fruit through poultry helps solidify the foundation of food costs.

BREAKING NEWS:

• Goya Foods offers four scholarships of up to $20,000 each to new culinary students.
• Pacific Northwest Canned Pear Service: CAN-DO Challenge winners and pear Tricks and Tips.
• Introducing Flavor & The Menu’s Top 10 Trends for 2024.
• Last opportunity for free high school instructor professional development in agriculture and sustainability through online courses and onsite workshop.
• Chef instructors and students invited to enter the 2024 CAN DO Challenge.
• McCormick For Chefs launches four new seasonings pair flavors following global flavor trends.
• Washington Red Raspberry Commission announces winners of Illinois student competition.
• Pasta recipes with a protein-packed twist.
• Listening and learning from CAFÉ Talks: Have you heard the latest CAFE Talks podcasts? Don’t miss fascinating topics from ingredients to activism.
• Organizational chart helps CAFÉ Talks listeners find the most applicable episode.
• Free enterprise-grade culinary resource planning platform for foodservice operations launched by Galley.
• Catering to the young at heart: Culinary Visions® research reveals how baby boomers are reshaping senior dining.
• McCormick For Chefs® Introduces three new sauces.
• 2024 CAN DO Challenge Winners.
• Cultural Culinary Innovations: transforming ingredients for sustainable food practices webinar. One-hour event hosted by the National Pork Board, USA Potatoes and McCormick Science Institute exploring how traditional culinary techniques can be adapted for modern, sustainable eating.
• CAFÉ conference and a call for presenters: Conference details announced and deadline extended for education presenters.

Click here to read the 2023 Gold Medal Classroom article index.