To baking-and-pastry students with dreams of owning and operating their own bakeshops, whether to create from scratch or utilize a convenience-added product has everything to do with quality and consistency.

By Mark Kwasigroch

Your mission: Make a batch of turnovers that are light, buttery and flakey. Do you …

One, commit to a multi-step process that includes preparing a base dough with bread flour and all-purpose flour, enclose butter at exactly the right temperature, chill rolled-out dough before rolling out again (then repeat), then cut, fill, fold and bake to consume literally hours for perfect turnovers? 

Or two, lay out ready-to-use puff-pastry dough, cut into squares or circles, fill to make sweet or savory, crimp and bake for beautifully golden, fresh-from-the-oven turnovers in minutes?

Today, more American bakeshops (and even bakeshops in France) seek short-cut solutions to creating high-quality classic pastries, breads and other baked goods. This should come as no surprise; after all, the phrase “from scratch” entered the English lexicon as recently as the 1950s—the same decade that produced the first electric can opener. In an industry beleaguered by excruciatingly short profit margins and a dearth of qualified help, “speed scratch,” or the use of convenience products to eliminate time and labor in food preparation, makes a lot of sense.

If you’re 45 or older, you probably prefer a baked potato over french fries, according to results of a recent study. However you like your potato, it’s the vegetable of choice for nearly one-quarter of Americans, and virtually everyone in this country eats them.

In the latest consumer survey by the Idaho Potato Commission (IPC) conducted in January 2014, 97% of Americans said they eat potatoes, and more than 81% enjoy them as a side dish, snack or main course on average of three days per week.

Conducted prior to Potato Lover’s Month (February), the survey polled 1,000 nationally representative Americans ages 18 and over, and delivered unambiguously pro-potato results. “America’s favorite vegetable is now consumed three times a week, up from two times weekly in 2009,” says Frank Muir, IPC president and CEO.

Other revelations include:

• More men than women (84% vs. 78%) eat potatoes once a week
• Regionally, Midwesterners are most likely to eat potatoes at least once a week (88%)
• Popularity of preparations rank with ease of preparation–baked (29%), mashed (25%), french fries (17%), hash browns (9%), potato chips (5%)
• Consumers ages 45+ favor baked potatoes (36% vs. 23% for ages 18-44)
• Consumers ages 18-44 prefer french fries (21% vs. 12% for age 45+)
• Nearly 25% choose potatoes as the vegetable they crave; leafy greens follow at 20%
• 72% said they would eat Idaho® potatoes in preference to potatoes from other states

The Los Angeles Dodgers expects to sell more than 3 million hot dogs to fans this season, while the Detroit Tigers unveils the Poutine Dog. Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs will offer a taste of hot dogs over the last 10 decades at Wrigley Field.

It’s a love affair that has spanned generations, and baseball fans will once again make hot dogs their No. 1 choice at the ballparks this summer. The Washington, D.C.-based National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) estimates that fans will eat a whopping 21,357,316 hot dogs and 5,508,887 sausages during the 2014 Major League season—enough hot dogs to stretch from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles to Wrigley Field in Chicago. 

“When it comes to the food of choice at baseball games, nothing cuts the mustard quite like hot dogs and sausages,” says Eric Mittenthal, NHDSC vice president of public affairs. “It’s a tradition that fans relish, and despite growing options at concessions, they keep coming back for their old favorite.”

This year’s total includes a new single-season record for most hot dogs at one stadium as the Los Angeles Dodgers anticipates fans will consume 3,077,537 hot dogs, a jump of more than 800,000 hot dogs from last year. That is enough to round the bases at Dodger Stadium 4,274 times.

CAFÉ’s second-annual Deans and Directors Retreat in February introduced a stellar line-up of thought leaders to passionate educators wishing to grow and strengthen their culinary-arts programs amid sweeping societal evolution.

By Brent T. Frei

Approximately 40 people attended CAFÉ’s 2^nd-annual Deans and Directors Retreat, held Feb. 22-23 at Kendall College in Chicago. Like last year’s inaugural event, this year’s was marked by tremendous interaction among program leaders who shared best practices in culinary education.

Attendees included Kirk Bachmann, M.Ed., CEC, AAC, president of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Chicago; Eric Frauwirth, Ed.D., dean of Stratford University’s Baltimore campus; Jim Gallivan, MAT, CCA, CCP, CFBE, culinary-arts chair at The Art Institute of Atlanta; and Dorothy Johnston, CEC, CCE, AAC, hospitality-management chair and instructor at Erie Community College in Buffalo, N.Y.

A simple concept conceived by the School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College turned out to be a powerful tool with which to teach culinary-arts students how to achieve impeccable flavor in every dish.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC

TAAT^© is a major initiative that the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts launched in 2007. On the surface, it seems like a pretty obvious and maybe unnecessary teaching tool. After all, everyone tastes the food they eat, at least in theory. Certainly, one would assume that those studying the culinary arts would taste their food. Based on my experience in culinary education over the last decade, however, I am convinced that these assumptions are false. That is where TAAT is proving powerful.

Tasting involves more than ingesting food. True critical tasting involves more than simply declaring one’s like or dislike for a particular food or dish. Tasting in the professional sense involves work and contemplation, which then ideally leads to action. I believe that this lack of taste training is part of American culture. Students in America are schooled to critically think about art and music, but curiously not in the culinary arts, where they should also critically develop their senses of smell and taste. This method instills that analytical rationale in our students.