- Focus on your future
Culinary school means you are following your dream and focusing on what’s important to you. You have a plan, and you are working toward your goal. What could be more exciting than that?
- Doing what you love
The greatest joy we can find is in doing something we love. Even better, is doing something you are passionate about and getting paid for it. Like a bona fide and well-worn recipe, you take one step at a time and soon you will have a prodigious career in the field of culinary arts. The next generation of students will wander in, doe-eyed and seeking to aspire to what you have achieved.
- Learning how to cook
You can’t build an amazing Eiffel tower of a career on a terrible and poorly thought out foundation. Start with the basics. Learn the tools and their care, every appliance in the kitchen and how to maintain and operate them (and if you want to be really good – learn how to perform basic repairs), learn the applicable laws and safety issues, and practice your cuts (and speed) faithfully every single day. Take care of your tools and your workspace. Cultivate relationships with other chefs, farmers and vendors – these are the same folks you will deal with later on as peers. These are the core parts of culinary arts, and the same parts that bring a sense of pride and comfort to many chefs.
- Trying new flavors and methods of cooking
Culinary school affords you the opportunity to try new flavors you wouldn’t typically have exposure to at home or community. Not everyone has access to a great Korean restaurant or knows how to make French crepes properly.
- Working in a kitchen
There is nothing like the hustle, sounds and flow of a fully operational professional kitchen. It’s fluid, organic and you can tell when everyone knows their role and each other.
- Unique and interesting people
Culinary arts attracts some of the most unique and interesting people on the planet. You can learn something from everyone if you take the time to listen and watch. Some of the greatest characters can be found working the line in some of the finest restaurants in the country.
- Learning how to read and write a recipe properly
Going back to core basics, every chef should understand not only how to read a recipe properly, but how to write one as well. It’s exciting to be able to modify a recipe on the fly to go from serving six people to serving six hundred – all in your head.
- Confidence
Being a cook or chef is as much confidence as it is hard work. Skills can be taught, but confidence has to come from within. Culinary school builds your foundation and allows you to develop your confidence in a student environment, without the pressure of the live kitchen on your shoulders.
- How to quarter and truss a chicken
The cost of culinary education is worth it for this skill alone. How often do you cook chicken in your personal life? Knowing how to adeptly quarter and truss a whole chicken is a skill home chefs don’t typically have, and one that will make you the star in your kitchen.
- Tools and appliances
When you begin culinary school, you either purchase or are given a bundle of tools to begin your career. Typically included are a knife set, specialty tools, spatulas, thermometers, scissors and pastry tools. But when you walk into the school’s kitchen for the first time, you will see a roomful of tools and appliances you wouldn’t typically have access to at home. Things like a salamander, a fryer, a meat slicer, ice cream makers, high-end processors, stock kettles and more.
- Creativity
There is something to be said for being afforded the ability to be creative. Your instructor will have times when you need to follow directions explicitly; other times you will be given and ingredient and told to make whatever you’d like with it. These are a culinary student’s dream moment – your moment to let your creativity shine.
- The magic of stocks and bouquet garni
Truly, there is some magic that occurs when you add a bouquet garni or make a stock from scratch. Knowing how to create this magic makes you a wizard of epic proportions.
- Champion ingredients
There are some ingredients that you should always have on hand in your kitchen – whether professional or personal. You’ll learn what these are and how to use them effectively. Salt your stew too much? How do you save it? Need to thicken a sauce and you’re out of starch? How do you give something a fresher taste? You’ll learn all these things. It’s like being given a backstage pass to the Merlin Awards.
- Access to foods from all over the world
Even community colleges have a bigger food budget than you do as a student. This means they can acquire foods you typically wouldn’t be able to afford. Also, culinary schools have cultivated relationships with vendors for years. They know where to find even the most unique of ingredients. Enjoy it and experiment with flavors.
- Job placement
Not enough can be said about job placement. A quality culinary school will have a solid placement program, and not just for the required internship. Culinary graduates reflect on the school directly; it behooves them to see you placed at a great location that you want to be in. Unless you managed to find your dream placement on your own, you should always take advantage of the help.
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