I have begun reading your book over the past weeke...

2011-06-20T17:48:01.464-04:00

I have begun reading your book over the past weekend. Needless to say I have found it hard to put down.
I am a currently a culinary school instructor in Austin (and formerly in Vermont) and I have been struggling with and arguing pro and con for both sides of this issue for years. I too graduated from culinary school, after having been in the industry for ten years and almost eight years after having gotten a bachelors degree in hospitality management.
I have had to deal with both sides: young self-taught cooks, and fresh faces straight from school. Both can be rewarding, and both can be as frustrating.
My arguments for culinary school have always been that culinary school can allow you the opportunity to get a broad base of basics quicker than if you spent time moving from kitchen to kitchen and from position to position. The key to this is that culinary school allows you the access to the education. What you take away from school will be entirely up to the individual. What I am finding is that there are more students going to culinary school these days with no experience or expectations or even motivation than there are students who have the initiative to succeed there.
In your book, you talk of how you spent hours in the library each day pouring over the books available, and working to succeed in every way possible. If only I had students like you. My current class consists of several career changers, six students fresh from high school, and several dilettantes who have no idea who Thomas Keller is, let alone Escoffier or Careme. And what’s worse is that for some reason, they don’t really want to find out about what they don’t know.
I have been struggling with this for weeks now as I see myself getting more and more frustrated with how the students’ attitudes towards cooking and food are nowhere near what I have experienced previously with new students or with new line cooks.
In fact, I have had unschooled line cooks who are more ‘foodie’, more motivated to learn, more focused than any of the students I have right now. (Not that I haven’t had my share of stoner, alcoholic, party all the time, Bourdainesque line cooks). Its just that I have tried to hire for motivation, not necessarily skill level.
Last night I read through the chapter where you talk about your fish chef and how even though he motivated with fear, he got you to want to learn. I personally would like to become someone like that.
On the flipside, my argument against culinary school has always been two fold. One, the money. From the inside, it is easy to see how monetarily focused the education business is. And it is not sustainable in its current form. Due to the education reform act recently passed, things are getting better, but not necessarily for the student or their future career. Number two is this, if you just go to class and don’t put in the work, then you are just wasting the time, and summarily the money you have spent. You have to be focused and milk the school, the educators, and the experience, for all it is worth.
You get out what you put in to it…ultimately.

The last paragraph was awesome. I think everyone ...

2011-06-17T15:30:38.148-04:00

The last paragraph was awesome. I think everyone tries to simpify life by saying there is only one true path to the destination. All roads lead to Rome, but there are many roads to get there.

Best Wishes,

Nannette Eaton

I went to university and got a degree which, seemi...

2011-06-17T11:34:25.098-04:00

I went to university and got a degree which, seemingly, would not lead to direct employment in an easily defined field. I got a MA in behavioural science.
I got a job but it wasn't in a way I had imagined it would be. I got to use what I had studied somewhat indirect. I don't regret going to university, and now having student loans up over my ears but it was worth it. sometimes education isn't about what you'll be paid after graduation, it's about enhancing oyur mind. Education is not a waste of time and money. In the end, you'll figure out what to do with it all.

Comments on A Hunger Artist: Guest Post: I Went to Cooking School (and Don’t Re...

I have begun reading your book over the past weeke...

The last paragraph was awesome. I think everyone ...

I went to university and got a degree which, seemi...