Posted on 06/06/2009 2:21:12 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The rise of the Food Network from an obscure channel to cultural phenomenon and the explosion of celebrity chefs changed people’s perceptions about the culinary industry.
Today, cooking and the culinary arts have become hip and sexy. The explosion in popularity has reached beyond television. Today, more and more people are seeking careers in the culinary arts.
“Over the past three or so years, the number of people enrolling in culinary training programs grown tremendously,” said Shelly Ford, director of communication for The International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Washington, located in Arlington, Va.
The Art Institute launched its culinary program back in 2001. Today, the school has 300 culinary students and is planning an expansion in the near future.
“The people who come here want to learn the fundamentals of cooking,” Ford said.
Our students could go to a kitchen and learn to cook one way, under the supervision of one person. Our education, however, allows people to learn the basic techniques in various cooking styles that will allow them to be more marketable, she said.
While the institute still primarily fills its classes with recent high school graduates, many people in the Washington area are going to the Art Institute to train for second careers.
“People who started in the government in their early-, early-20s and are now in their 40s and retiring from the government, but are too old to retire and are coming to us to learn a new set of skills,” said Kristen Wright, director of career services at the Art Institute.
The school offers a number of degrees in the culinary arts. It offers a B.S. in Culinary Arts Management as well as Associate of Arts in Culinary Arts. It also offers a B.S. in Food & Beverage Management and an A.A. in Wine, Spirits & Beverage Management.
The Art Institute’s training provides graduates with the skills necessary for entry-level jobs in the profession.
But not everyone is taking degrees into a restaurant kitchen. A graduate with a degree in the culinary arts has a wide range of options beyond the standard restaurant kitchen, Wright said. A degree from the Institute will provide students with the skills necessary to transition into a work catering company, nursing home or craft services firm after graduation.
Many students come to the school drawn by the glamour, not realizing the hard work and grueling hours a career in the culinary arts requires, Wright said.
The fortune and fame reaped by Food Network personalities doesn’t translate down to the average graduate. A quick search on PayScale reveals that a line cook with one year of experience in D.C. can expect to make about $22,000 a year.
But in order to get to those six figures, most executive chefs have worked more hours than some people do in a lifetime.
What I don’t get is this: Why pay for four years of tuition to these schools when Uncle Sam will train you as a chef and pay you while he’s doing it? Yes, you are correct, cooks are very hard working people.
HORSE PUCKEY. Been there, done that. Unless you own the restaurant, mid 70's is about tops around here.
A culinary school graduate that lands a job as a kitchen manager/chef/everything else can expect maybe $12/hr out of school.
And standing on your feet (there are no chairs in kitchens) for 17 hours a day can wreck your health.
My degree and skills get me cushy little party gigs where I get free booze, good food, and get to meet interesting people that I don't have to kill.
I pay the bills another way.
/johnny
Where’s “here?” In Des Moines, Biloxi/Gulfport and Dallas/Ft. Worth (the markets I’m familiar with) an executive chef at a hotel, casino, 4 star restaurant or similar should be at leat in the ninties up to $200.
Did that, too. Services Specialist (7-level) in the USAFR. Cooked for thousands of our warriors (even one SecAF). That training doesn't matter much in the fine-dining real world.
The USAF didn't teach me one tenth of the stuff I learned at culinary school about food. To be fair, culinary school didn't teach me much about field feeding under adverse conditions.
/johnny
Just recently I read where culinary school grads are having a hard time finding a job. Lured to culinary school by what appears to be the cushy gigs of celebrity chefs, few realize how hard the work really is and what it will take to be like the chefs on TV.
And of course, between Obama telling us not to eat so much and massive job losses, where are those culinary grads going to work if folks don’t have the money to spend in restaurants?
At Camp Casey, Korea, we had a mess hall staffed with school trained (CIA, etc.) chefs that were sent to those schools on Uncle’s dime. Great chow!!
His research—consistent with similar studies—found that about one in four restaurants close or change ownership within their first year of business. Over three years, that number rises to three in five.
Even more immigrants that make much less.
And as an intern there, I made squat.
/johnny
Some Navy food is great, and some AF food is great, and lots of Techs and Masters in the AF Services Squadrons and Navy Mess Specialists study a lot to improve the food, but it's nothing like a commercial culinary school.
/johnny
Cooking is something that can’t be outsourced, just like car repair. There are hundreds of thousands of gigs overseas for school-trained chefs. Plus, there seem to still be a lot of openings here: http://www.ihirechefs.com/t-Executive-Chef-jobs.html
The restaurants here in Fort Worth (from McDonald’s to Chili’s to Ruth’s Chris and Lonesome Dove) are all pretty full. I don’t think the recession is hitting Texas as badly as elsewhere. Might be that no state income tax thing...
That was 1981-82, so what the Army does now, I have no idea.
I’m in a university town in Iowa. This is the only place, in 55 years of eating, that I’ve ever seen white guys cooking in Asian restaurants. I think the food is comparable to the Asian food I had all the time in Seattle, but it is still a little freaky to see the white chefs.
You’re right, you can’t outsource cooking, but again, if folks don’t have money to eat out...
That said, the restaurants here amid the cornfields are packed. As a prof, I often go out in the middle of the week to avoid the weekend student crowds, but the restaurants are busy in the middle of the week as well.
Ames? Iowa City? Cedar Falls? Fairfield?
LOL! Good way of putting it.
If you're too old at 40 to retire then life stinks.
That would be Iowa City.
Even 30 years ago, numerous vets exiting the military would head for cuisine programs. The craft back then never got the publicity it gets today.
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