What is Culinary Education?
Culinary Art is the art of good cooking, whether it's your passion to create a beautiful meal for friends or your job to feed discerning customers at a 5-star restaurant. Culinary Artists, or Culinarians, are responsible for preparing meals that are as pleasing visually as they are to taste. Graduates of culinary arts education programs develop knowledge of food science, diet, and nutrition, and pursue career opportunities across a wide range of institutions that require dining services. Culinary arts careers have grown increasingly hip due to the recent popularity of cooking shows on cable and network television.
Culinary Education
Culinary Education — also known as Culinary Arts Education, Cooking School, or Chef Training — prepares people for careers in the Culinary Arts. Culinary Education offers culinary arts students the opportunity to develop expertise in the culinary arts through direct experience. Chef training apprenticeships and internships are important components of culinary programs. The American Culinary Federation accredits chef training programs in a wide variety of cooking techniques and sponsors apprenticeship programs in cooking schools across the U.S.
How to Acquire Culinary Education
Culinary education can be acquired at the secondary level (high school) or postsecondary level (after high school) and can interact with the apprenticeship system. At the postsecondary level, culinary education is typically offered at colleges, culinary institutes, local community colleges, career training colleges, technical/vocational schools, and trade schools.
Culinary career education alone does not generally require a bachelor's degree and is therefore not usually considered to fall under the traditional definition of an academic higher education. However, culinary education is increasingly recognized in terms of prior learning and partial academic credit towards an associate's degree.
Culinary Education and Chef Training
There is a wide variety of opportunities — even fame and fortune — in the culinary arts profession. A passion for good food and tasteful presentation together with an accredited culinary education can prepare you for these culinary careers:
- Celebrities: Chefs such as Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, and Rachel Ray have become internationally known celebrities.
- Chef and Cooks: Work directly with the preparation of food in a variety of dining establishments, including full-service restaurants, catering facilities, institutional dining, corporate dining, and more.
- Consultants and Design Specialists: Work with restaurant owners in the development of menus, layout, and design of dining rooms and restaurant facilities.
- Entrepreneurship: Many chefs or cooks develop their own culinary businesses such as restaurants, bakeries, and specialty food manufacturing (premier chocolates; gourmet cheese).
- Food and Beverage Managers: Supervise food and beverage operations in hotels, hospitals, schools, and other institutions.
- Food and Beverage Controllers: Manage the purchase process and source ingredients for restaurants, hotels, schools, hospitals, event facilities, and other institutions that require dining services.
- Sales: Introduce chefs, cooks, and business owners to new culinary products and demonstrate the proper use of equipment. Sell a range of products needed in the culinary industry, from food products to cooking equipment.
- Food Writers and Critics: Write for newspapers, magazines, books, and websites. Broadcast your opinions on the radio or TV.
- Food Stylists and Photographers: Work with magazines, books, catalogs, and advertising agencies to make publications visually appealing.
- Research and Development Kitchens: Develop new culinary products for commercial manufacturers, they can also be test kitchens for publications or others can be kitchens for restaurant chains or grocery chains.
- Cooking School Teachers: Train future culinary professionals in your culinary lab before sending them out on chef training externships.