Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Male and Female Ratios in Culinary School

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admin
on November 19, 2009
in Culinary Schools
. 0 Comments

Male to Female Ratio Culinary SchoolUntil very recently, the proportion of men to women in culinary schools (and in the restaurant industry as a whole) has been very uneven. Just twenty-five years ago, the percentage of women attending culinary school hovered somewhere below 10 percent. Fifteen years ago, that number jumped to around 35 percent. Today, women and men attend culinary school in almost equal proportions.

Of course, these numbers aren’t static across the board. When you look at the more prestigious schools (like the Culinary Institute of America), male students still outrank female ones 7 to 3. These numbers are a little more evenly distributed than they have been in the past, but female students can certainly feel outnumbered.

Interestingly enough, women always have outranked men when it comes to baking school. In fact, even the CIA sees a disproportionate number of female baking and pastry arts students; in 2003, women accounted for almost 80 percent of the students.

So, what do all of these numbers mean? The answer can be found by looking directly at the restaurant industry.

Although women and men are now attending culinary school in equal proportions, the number of male culinary professionals continues to be higher. Everyone from the celebrity chefs on Food Network and the winners on Top Chef to the Executive Chefs and restaurant owners currently in operation fall into the male majority. That’s because it’s going to take a few years before the cooking school numbers are reflected in the workforce. Women are just now starting to graduate and move beyond entry-level jobs to start finding their niches in the culinary industry.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or a woman considering culinary school; these days, the options are fairly gender-neutral. Women may have a few more hurdles to face in proving their physical stamina in the kitchen, but they should have no problems when it comes to the school admissions process. Culinary schools know that they have decades of inequality to make up for, so more women are finding easy entry than ever before.

Skills Needed to Succeed in Baking School

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on November 10, 2009
in Baking School
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i_baker_breadAlthough the two fall under the same umbrella concept of working in the kitchen, baking school and cooking school are two very different ideas. Cooking is very much an art form, requiring students to use their imaginations and their taste buds to come up with new, delicious creations. Baking is more like a science, and although there is certainly room for creativity, there is much about baking that has to do with measurements and proportions of ingredients.

Most of the time, culinary professionals focus on either baking or cooking, although they may dabble a little in both. If you think baking school might be right for you, consider the following skills sets:

  • Attention to detail: Because so much of baking school is about creating correct proportions of things like leavening agents, you have to be able to understand how the little things might make all the difference.
  • Adaptable and imaginative: At the same time, while you have to be able to adhere to time-honored techniques and recipes, you have to be able to come up with recipes of your own. That means taking the skills you learn and applying them to your own creations.
  • Physically capable: Much of baking is strenuous. You can expect to work in a hot, fast-paced environment, oftentimes for long hours at a time. In many types of settings, you’ll also need to lift heavy trays and/or cakes.
  • Team-oriented: When you go to baking school or even start a baking career, you’re not going to be going solo. You need to work well with others in both a leadership and a team setting, since commercial kitchens and bakeries often require collaboration from the start of a project to the finish.

Of course, you’ll also need basic kitchen skills. Fortunately all of these things can be learned as you go through baking skill. Some people are born with the type of patience and attention it takes to become a successful pastry chef; others have to develop these things over time. As long as you choose a good pastry arts and baking school, however, you’ve taken the right first step.