:: Culinary Degrees
Culinary arts, in which culinary means "related to cooking", are the arts of preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called "chefs" or "cooks", although, at its most general, the terms "culinary artist" and "culinarian" are also used. Table manners ("the table arts") are sometimes referred to as a culinary art.
Expert chefs are required to have knowledge of food science, nutrition and diet and are responsible for preparing meals that are as pleasing to the eye as they are to the palate. After restaurants, their primary places of work include delicatessens and relatively large institutions such as hotels and hospitals.
Modern Culinary Arts students study many different aspects of food. Specific areas of study include butchery, chemistry and thermodynamics, visual presentation, food safety, human nutrition and physiology, international history, the manufacture of food items (such as the milling of wheat into flour or the refining of cane plants into crystalline sucrose), and many others.
Training in culinary arts is possible in most countries around the world. Usually at tertiary level (university). With institutions government funded, privately funded or commercial.
Before cooking institutions, professional cooks were mentors for individual students who apprenticed under them. In 1879 the first cooking school was founded in the United States: the Boston Cooking School. This school standardized cooking practices and recipes, and laid the groundwork for the culinary arts schools that would follow. Fannie Merritt Farmer was a student, and later the principal, of the Boston Cooking School She became the first person in the U.S to write a cookbook. Farmer’s Boston Cooking School Cookbook included over 1,000 recipes along with cooking tips.
After WWII there was a demand for culinary arts which the newly invented television and the radio broadcast to the American masses. In the 1940's, James Beard hosted a cooking show that was extremely popular, and in the 1960's Julia Child brought French cooking practices to America by radio and television. These shows along with the many others that followed helped to educate people and popularize the education of culinary arts.
A cooking school is an institution devoted to education in the art and science of cooking and food preparation. There are many different types of cooking schools around the world, some devoted to training professional chefs, others aimed at amateur enthusiasts, with some being a mixture of the two. Amateur cooking schools are often intertwined with culinary tourism in many countries. Programs can vary from half a day to several years. Some programs lead to an academic degree or a recognized vocational qualification, while others do not. Many programs include practical experience in the kitchen of a restaurant attached to the school or a period of work experience in a privately owned restaurant.
Some schools, such as Le Cordon Bleu, offer programs through which a chef may demonstrate his or her knowledge and skills and be given certification. Others, such as Baltimore International College, Stratford University, Johnson and Wales University, and the Culinary Institute of America offer programs whereby students gain either an Associate's or Bachelor's degree. There are also a few, such as Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, Manchester Community College in Connecticut, Los Angeles Trade Technical College in California, or where students receive upon graduation not only an Associate's degree but also certification by the American Culinary Federation, the largest professional chefs' organization in North America.
Select from the following list of current Culinary Degrees:
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