Demonstrating the importance of adding a little acidity to the final flavor of a dish is especially important when developing low-sodium recipes.

By Carrie Stebbins

In both culinary and dining classes I talk a lot about the balance of a food or beverage on the palate.

It seems like we teach our culinary students to add salt at many stages, but we only encourage them to add acidity on specific occasions. What I like to emphasize is that acidity can brighten a dish without making it taste sour.

A few years back I attended a wine and food pairing seminar given by Jerry Comfort of Beringer Wines. We tasted foods that represented the basic four flavors, plus umami, along with a variety of wines. The results were negative as often as they were positive! Some of the multiple combinations, however, were the best. I decided to try a similar technique with my culinary students at the beginning of a class to show how important adding a little acidity is to the final flavor of a dish. This is especially important for developing low-sodium recipes.

Learning goals should be actionable, visible, measurable and developmentally appropriate and should lead to authentic, motivating tasks.

By Jean L. Hertzman, Ph.D., CCE

As educators, we are always looking for ways to engage students in our courses so that their effort results in significant and lasting learning, which adds value to them personally and professionally. This is exactly the purpose of using Fink’s (2003) model of Integrated Course Design (ICD) to create Significant Learning Experiences. This article will briefly discuss the principles of ICD and Fink’s Taxonomy of Significant Learning and how to use them to develop learning goals, teaching and learning activities and feedback and assessment methods.

Just as Americans’ love affair with beef reignited in the 1990s, butter is coming back in a big way

Although butter has been vilified for decades as a “bad” fat best to be avoided, recent studies reveal that its negative profile was undeserved. That’s good news for anyone who cooks (and eats), because butter relies on a whopping 120+ unique compounds for its silky, incomparable flavor.

“There simply is no substitute for butter in cooking,” says Chef Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC, vice president of the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago and the Laureate Universities International Center for Culinary Excellence. “Not only does the pure, sweet-cream taste of butter complement and enhance the flavor of dishes, but butter provides a smooth and creamy texture that is especially important in sauces.”

Indeed, the days of banishing butter from the back of the house are ending, Koetke says. Because, just as Americans’ love affair with beef reignited in the 1990s, butter is coming BACK—and in a big way.

This group’s need for powerful nutrition, flavorful food, comfort and indulgence, and speed and convenience are driving their food choices.

As incoming college freshmen packed their bags for school this fall, many said goodbye not only to family members, but also to existing eating habits. Thanks to innovative campus foodservice, adventurous global-cuisine restaurants and the influence of new acquaintances, impressionable students are exposed to new foods that quickly turn into favorites. They develop new eating habits and expectations that will stick with them long after graduation, impacting the food industry for decades to come, according to the recently released “Collegiate Gen Y Eating: Culinary Trend Mapping Report” by market research publisher Packaged Facts and San Francisco-based strategic food-and-beverage-innovation agency CCD Innovation.

In the height of the sweltering summer, some seasonal, fruity favorites have fared well, while others are falling from favor.

If you want to know what cocktails people are ordering in bars and restaurants, you don’t need to look any further than an episode of “Mad Men.”Classic cocktails are mixing things up on the drink menu this year. According to new research from Mintel Menu Insights, cocktails that are described as “classic” on menus have increased by a whopping 76% since 2009. Popular retro drink, the Manhattan, has seen a 35% increase on menus since 2009, while the Gimlet is up 63%, Sazerac is up 57% and the Side Car has jumped 50%*.

“Bartenders and cocktail geeks are taking a very academic approach to mixing drinks, and many are learning the history and the evolution of iconic cocktails,” says Kathy Hayden, senior foodservice analyst at Mintel. “This approach combines with better ingredients, some nostalgia for a time when people had time to enjoy cocktails and cocktail parties and widespread interest in ‘cocktail culture’ to boost interest in the classics.”

Among survey respondents who have ordered a drink at bars/nightclubs, 54% ordered a beer in the last three months, making it the most widely accepted alcoholic beverage. Cocktails also have a high incidence of use, however, with 44% of people saying they’ve ordered one in the same timeframe. A new cocktail claim making its debut on menus is “skinny.” In 2009, there were zero reports of the skinny claim and in Q2 2012, Mintel Menu Insights tracked 110 items boasting this descriptor.