I think these are huge trends and invaluable to get exposure to. I cannot emphasize these enough in the classroom. I like adding snout to tail and molecular gastronomy to the lineup as well, at least for the exposure.
This conversation goes back to an interview with Thomas Kellar in Lucky Peach when he was asked if culinary school is worth it. His response was absolutely, as long as the college environment was advanced and in the forefront of the industry.
As with this class, I concur that we must stay ahead of the industry or we risk doing an inservice to the student.
Nathan,
That's fantastic! It sounds like you are truly involved in sharing excellent topics with the students - one that will help them both in their personal and professional lives! Many Chef educators are bringing this important topic to the classroom or doing workshops outside of class to engage students in this important culinary direction.
Jae Gruber
I feel that the longest standing and most valuable current food trend is farm to table/ local/ sustainable or Alice Waters New American Cuisine. I have a garden club with which I use to discuss starting a garden, maintaining a garden, storing, drying, canning or otherwise preserving the harvest, saving seeds (heirloom), composting usable food scraps (decreasing carbon footprints is a popular topic), using fresh herbs in cooking, sharing recipes for using fresh and preserved foods from the garden etc.. The list of additional teaching opportunities is to big to mention in a forum. We do community service projects as well to help network and show the importance of community service.
Lisa,
It is so important for Chef instructors to do this. Sometimes instructors believe that students are investigating these subjects when they are not in school, but this is not necessarily the case. In addition to informing the students, I believe there is the added bonus of keeping the Chef instructor current as well, while adding interesting content and over-delivery to the course content.
Jae Gruber
I like to share items that are hot in the industry, talk about new types of restaurants that are popping up in the area.
