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.

Hand pies are the latest incarnation in the mini-dessert trend, crêpes add adventure to diners’ repertoires, and nuts, dessert butters and spoonables are big.

The Food Channel® (foodchannel.com) in February released its “Top Ten Dessert Trends for 2014,”sponsored by Otis Spunkmeyer®. The popular annual report looks at market trends around sweets and treats. Based on research conducted in conjunction with CultureWaves®, the list identifies the significant behaviors of consumers, foodservice professionals and manufacturers, with original recipes and photographs to illustrate each trend.

The Food Channel Top 10 Dessert Trends for 2014 are:

Healthy whole grains are hot all over the menu. But what diner wants to consume a simple bowl of them? Chef Renee Zonka explains how to teach students to look beyond oatmeal at breakfast to showcase whole grains in dish development in a whole new light.

By Renee Zonka, RD, CEC, CHE

March is National Nutrition Month, and everyone’s talking whole grains these days as consumer interest in them soars. Many foodservice establishments, however, are still challenged with making whole grains not only palatable, but craveable.

Here are five flavorful ways you can teach students to incorporate whole-grain goodness into menus and elicit guest delight.

Brown: the New White
Brown rice is one of the most familiar whole grains to diners. Diehard white-rice lovers might rate brown rice as second fiddle, but they like the healthy halo brown rice carries. So here’s a tip for students: Replace part of the white rice in a pilaf or other side dish with brown rice. Doing so not only adds flavor and nutrition (such as fiber and magnesium, which are stripped from white rice during processing) to a dish, but also contrasting color.

Yellow, red, white and sweet onions all bear different qualities and thus require different approaches to maximize their exquisite flavor and texture contributions to a dish.

By Robert Danhi

Many dishes begin with cooking an onion, but why? Because no other ingredient adds subtle sweetness and bolsters other flavors at the same time quite like an onion. In fact, the type of onion, the way it’s cut and the way it’s cooked all affect the flavor and texture of a finished dish in dramatically different ways. So, when you set out to create a new dish or you just want to tinker with an old favorite, pay special attention to the onion.

Types of Onion
While leeks and scallions can play a delicious role in cooking, globe onions of all kinds—yellow, red, white, sweet—and shallots are more assertive and versatile in cooking.

Yellow onions are all-purpose. Readily available and inexpensive, I use them more than any other type. They have the strongest flavor of all globe onions, so they are best when cooked. They’re usually my first choice for stocks and broths.

White onions retain their firm texture. They're a bit milder than yellow onions, so they can be eaten raw (in a salsa or on a hamburger), but they're also strong enough to hold up under heat. I especially love how white onions hold their shape and texture when sautéed.

Robert Garlough’s goal is for graduates to become a source of intense pride to the Middle-Eastern kingdom’s foodservice and business communities and the college’s programs to be respected worldwide.

Laureate International Universities (LIU) announces longtime hospitality educator Robert Garlough, MS, HGT, has been appointed founding executive director of the new Laureate Tourism & Hospitality College of Excellence in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was most recently president of The Culinary Group, a consulting firm to the foodservice and culinary-education community. Prior to that, Garlough served as the founding program director for the Hospitality Education Department (renamed the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education) at Grand Rapids Community College, where he worked for more than 30 years.

Garlough assumes his position during a time of great expansion and investment by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has instituted a multi-billion-dollar plan to build and operate “Colleges of Excellence” for Saudis seeking vocational-technical educations in a variety of skill areas. The KSA is embarking on one of the largest vocational and technical education reforms in the world, increasing its capacity from currently 110,000 students to more than 400,000 students by 2020.

A multi-stage tender process has been launched to select the best training providers for setting up and operating 26 new colleges in the kingdom. These colleges will be independently run by international providers and regulated, funded and overseen by the Colleges of Excellence Corporation on behalf of the Saudi government. New college buildings are provided, built with state-of-the-art designs and providing space for up to 2,000 students.