There are many different ways that healthier options can be made available to students in school cafeterias. It is up to culinary educators to take action and make these changes happen.

By Jenni Schouppe

Trying to offer more healthy options and choices for school lunches has become a hot topic across the country. The big question has become: How can schools do this with the amount of money and funding they receive to run their foodservice? What can we do as educators to help make this change?

As childhood obesity rises in this county, it has become imperative that more healthy choices be made available to students in the school foodservice. To make this happen, it is also imperative that staff, students and families become educated in how to make this happen.

As revealed at this year’s IACP Conference in New York, on the map, but off the beaten path, is where today’s food trends are emerging.

Courtesy of Olson Communications

Chicago-based Olson Communications attended the annual International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Conference in April, where food, fashion and media connected in New York City. The discussions were charged with passionate and often disparate beliefs on food, fashion and the emerging role of the chef as cultural curator.

National advisory board recommends a more-modern approach to culinary education for the 16 schools in the United States.

Visiting a restaurant today often means watching chefs and their culinary staffs perform in open kitchens, tasting a variety of small plates featuring seasonal ingredients and enjoying a gourmet twist on comfort food. Gone are the days of five-course, white-tablecloth meals every weekend. So as American restaurants continue to evolve, so, too, does culinary education.

Recently, Le Cordon Bleu (LCB) College of Culinary Arts assembled its National Advisory Board (NAB) in Scottsdale, Ariz., to address the demands for today’s culinary professionals and how their educational programs can evolve. The board, comprised of a variety of chefs and industry business leaders, agreed that today’s educators need to focus on the fundamentals of cooking, while also having the flexibility to integrate a more modern approach.

Many students arrive for class thinking they don’t need to know about beverage because they deal with food. Here’s why they’re wrong.

By Albert W. A. Schmid, MA, CCP, CHE, CFBE, MCFE, CCE, CEC, COI

The message outlined in black letters on the white t-shirt is clear: Beer is Food! The first time I saw this t-shirt, I smiled, but beer does not hold a unique distinction among alcoholic beverages because wine and spirits are food, too.

In simple terms, beer is made from grain and wine is made from fruit. If a beer is distilled, it becomes either vodka or whiskey. If a wine is distilled it becomes a brandy (or sometimes vodka). There are other spirits that might be considered either depending on how you look at them, such as tequila from the agave plant, rum from sugar cane and vodka from potatoes. In any case, the alcohol starts with a food product, and we consume the final product as part of a meal or snack.

At The Culinary Institute of America, a final-semester project to plan and execute an event marketed to the public is one of the most rewarding parts of students’ educations.

By Dr. Pat Bottiglieri

Foodservice Management is taught in the final semester of the senior year in the Bachelor of Professional Studies Program at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Prior to taking this course, students will have successfully completed most of the required management and liberal-arts courses and all of their culinary, baking and pastry courses. Foodservice Management provides students with managerial concepts and theories for a senior level of management practice.

In addition, the course includes a capstone project. The project requires students to plan and execute an event that is marketed to the general public. The events must generate a profit. And, as the CIA is a not-for-profit college, any surplus is “reinvested”—divided between an external charity that students select and an internal scholarship fund. This part of the course is worth 25% of each student’s grade.