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... ting the guest, creating the menu, ordering the supplies and food, preparation and service of items ordered by paying guests (up to $ 100 per guest) and washing the dishes when it's all over. These real life experiences provide students with a sense of urgency and knowledge not found in textbooks. Culinary students, both male and female, are dressed in the uniform of the trade, a crisp white, double-breasted chef coat, a yellow neckerchief (which is a functional part of the uniform), black and white hounds tooth checked pants (they show less dirt than black or white pants), a white apron, with a towel draped over the belt to serve as a pot holder, and the toque. The hat's 100 pleats, as the story goes, represent either the number of ways a good chef can cook and egg, or the number of days of mourning after the death of the legendary French chef Auguste Escoffier in 1935. Hair is worn completely under the toque, or it is restrained by a hairnet.
Sanitation is a central issue at the CIA and students who do not abide by the rules are quickly eliminated. One student in my class experienced this extreme attention to sanitation and rules first hand. Working in the Escoffier Room kitchen, the class had begun production for the evening meal. One of the male students had a long pony tail, which he tucked up under his toque. The pony tail fell out and the chef-instructor, Chef Hennin a feisty French chef, told the student to put his hair back under his toque and not to let it happen again. Well, once again the pony tail flopped out from under the toque and Chef Hennin saw it.
This sent Chef into a rage, he snatched his French knife, a very large and razor sharp knife, grabbed the pony tail by the end and cut off the entire ten inch long tress in one pass of the knife close to the scalp. Upon completion of the student shearing the Chef exclaimed "You will not have to worry about your hair any longer my petite fleur, catch... ." Point made and well taken by all in class that evening. Students in traditional garb, tools slung across their back, knives hanging from their belt, scurry from classes in Oriental foods to Garde Manger to Advanced Cost Control Management Systems, where they use computers to prepare production schedules, cost summaries and budgets. The Learning Resource Center offers computer assisted remedial sessions for students with deficient math and language skills. In the unit on Culinary French they learn that voiture is not pronounced "voucher" and that Parmentier was a 18 th century alchemist who introduced the potato to France after doing time in a German prison camp. They learn to identify and butcher meat, to sculpting ice and salt dough, to analyzing and learning to appreciate wine.
In Supervisory Development how to confront hypothetical crises: how should a maitre d' react if, for example, a customer arrives 45 minutes late to claim his reserved table? What should a chef say to a worker who spills five gallons of consomme? And what is the proper response of a general manager on discovering that the hamburger count is 75 short? The $ 28, 000 tuition for the 21 -month program leading to an Associate in Occupational Studies degree covers room, board, books, uniforms, laundry, insurance and knives. The CIA has a year long waiting list for acceptance to the program.
Enrollment is predominantly male, about 60 percent, but more women are entering the field than ever before. The four 15 week periods on campus are interrupted by a salaried 18 -week "externship" in some approved restaurant where at least 51 percent of what is served is prepared from scratch and where there is a resident executive chef to provide enough "hands-on training' to offer "a real learning experience. " CIA graduates can expect four or five job offers, minimum starting salaries of more than $ 20, 000 and a lot more respect than cooks used to get when it was thought that oafs, who weren't good for much else, could always work with food. The thinking here is that since chefs study at least as hard and long as nurses and accountants, they should be registered or certified and treated with the dignity their counterparts have in Europe. The faculty consists of a who's who of the world's best chefs. 16 Master Chefs, of which there are only 72 in the whole world, are on the faculty, along with an additionally qualified group of 56 chef instructors. To become an instructor at the CIA, a chef must have completed a formal course of training, either at a recognized culinary school, or approved apprenticeship program. They must have a minimum of 10 years of industry experience as an Executive Chef and pass a rigorous "Mystery Basket Exam, " where an entire menu, appetizer; salad; soup; entree with sauce; starch; vegetable and kitchen dessert; must be produced and be perfect, from ingredients seen for the first time at the beginning of the three-hour test.
The attrition rate of chef-instructor applicants is high, only two out of 10 applicants are offered a position. Positions do not come available very often, as the average time on the job for chef-instructors is seven years. The 22 member academic faculty must also be recognized in their field and possess a minimum of a Master's degree in the discipline they instruct, 35 % possess a terminal degree. The chef-instructor to student ratio is 18: 1 in kitchen labs and 36: 1 in academic classes. The school is led by Master Chef Ferdinand Metz, one of the world's most recognized culinarian's. Chef Metz, the 52 -year-old native of Bavaria Germany, is an uncompromising leader who insists on quality and will not accept less than perfect.
Under his leadership, the school has become a distinguished institution which receives global respect. The administrative staff also includes an office dedicated to the employment of students and coordinates student job opportunities from employers who call the school looking for graduates to fill key positions. The financial aid department helps students arrange for payment of tuition and living expenses. An average of 85 % of students receive some sort of financial aid, scholarship or grant to attend the CIA. The typical in class time for faculty and students are six hour kitchen labs and 90 minute academic classes.
Students will have one kitchen lab and three academic classes per day, five days per week, on a three-week schedule. Every three weeks a student advances to a new block, the school is a progressive learning year program, starting with A and ending with Y. One of the rites of passage entering culinarian undertake, is upon completion of "A" block, one of the most demanding, students go to the Pagoda-On-The-Bluff, which has a spectacularly sweeping view over the Hudson River and is the best place on campus to view a sunset, chugs a beer and throw their school issued, shiny new vegetable peelers into the flowing river. Who knows how this venerated tradition started, but I am certain there are tens of thousands of rusting vegetable peelers at the bottom of the Hudson which will be discovered by an anthropologist some day in the future and cause them fits trying to figure out why they are there! The CIA also hosts the American Culinary Federation's ten day Master Chef program. Chefs from all over the country come to the school hoping to be qualified and certified as a Master Chef.
They are required to prepare menus for cardiovascular, low sodium, bland and diabetic diets as well as to show their more extravagant side. These professionals may already have salaries in the $ 100, 000 range. Only half the applicants for Master Chef certification pass the test. In the 21 months students attend the CIA, the average student will gain 25 pounds!
It is little wonder because it is rare to not go for an hour around the campus without being offered a bite of pate, a taste of soup, a fresh croissant or some other delightful pastry creation from one of the school's many kitchens. The school serves an average of 4, 000 meals per day and insists that everything cooked in classes is eaten, either by students or paying customers. The CIA spends nearly $ 5 million a year on food and an additional $ 1. 5 million on wine and other beverages. At graduation, which happens 16 times per year, students receive their diploma, a "Cordon Bleu" from which the bronze school medallion hangs and the tall toque, their newly earned badge of honor. Only 56 % of students who began the program less than two years earlier graduate.
Many leave because the school is too demanding, some quit because they realize that being a chef is a lot of work, others have money problems and can't afford to continue and some stay on as a full time employee at the restaurant where they did their mid-term externship. The ones who do graduate and the three guests they are each allowed to invite, are served a stupefyingly festive six course lunch, including four types of wine (two red, one white, one sparkling) by the Banquet Organization class. Diplomas in hand, Cordon around the neck, a head full of knowledge and hands full of skill, the CIA graduate is ready to take their place in line with the long list of great chefs who have come before them and live their dream of being a professional culinarian. I am proud to be one of these elite graduates. For the remainder of my life I will continue to abide by the traditions I learned and savor the experiences I enjoyed during my time at The Culinary. Bibliography:
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