02/03/2018
BE THE CHANGE
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by Peter A. Edey WCEC, CEC
As you might have realized, one of my pet peeves is chefs not educating and certifying themselves in the field that they have chosen and being seemingly oblivious of the importance of having themselves accredited, to the point where you might say that I am on and on about it. Well, yes I am, because I think it is most important, so here I am again whipping that same old horse and you may ask why? Well, I just returned from a culinary conference in North Carolina, one of three major events I make sure to attend annually; this one was ChefConnect: Charlotte, with its slogan “Be the change”, hosted by the Eastern Region of the American Culinary Federation (ACF). I attend these conferences to keep up with trends and to be exposed to the new equipment and ideas in the industry.
These events also provide the opportunity to meet and mingle with the best in the field as everyone who is anyone in this industry is present at these conferences and, we are not speaking of television chefs here, although they are all the rage these days and maybe have their place as far as entertainment is concerned. This though, leaves a misconception as to what being a chef really is, as what you see on television doesn’t even resemble what takes place in the industry from day to day. So yes, I do also have my issues with some of these entertainment programmes and the false impression that they give of this most noble profession.
What we fail to realize is that most of these TV chefs are merely presenters who never took the educational route, but who, in fact, are living out what they are good at which is presenting, with a team of knowledgeable people in the background doing all of the research and really putting the programme together for them to present. In another article I will explain to you what a chef really is so that you can understand what we really do, versus what they do as presenters.
Back to my main point though, which is the education of chefs. One of the events I attended this time around was the Knowledge Bowl. Now, this is an event where students from the high schools across the states of the Eastern Region compete in a Jeopardy-like competition, the winner of which will go forward to represent the region at the Cook.Craft.Create. ACF National Convention and Show which is taking place in July this year in Louisiana.
I sat in awe as the questions were posed to these young culinary students; these questions ranged in substance from basic methods of cooking to the Science and Chemistry of cooking; Butchery; Sanitation, Safety and Hygiene; Kitchen Management, as well as Food Costing and Controlling. I tell you, I was totally blown away by the wealth of knowledge these youngsters possess and I must admit that some of the questions made me think twice, before I, even to myself, of course, offered up an answer. I was also a bit embarrassed that many of the times the buzzers of these young people went off and the answers spewed from their mouths before I even had the chance to process the question. All right, in my defense, I will attribute that to the power of a younger and more active brain, ok? The point here though, is this clearly indicates why these young chefs of comparable age to ours always seem so far advanced and way ahead of what we are offering up, because having lectured at the Barbados Community College Hospitality Institute for 15 years, therefore, having intimate knowledge of the goings on and knowing that this institution is one of the most recognized in the region, I will dare say that any team coming out of our Hospitality Institute to take part in this Knowledge Bowl will be quite intimidated and totally blown away by this competition. This does not in any way mean that we could not compete; what it does indicate is that we need to change our offering in these institutions across the region and bring ourselves up to date with what currently exists in the industry.
The fact that we from this region can compete is evident by teams from the Bahamas which have participated in the competition and have done very well. This is thanks though to one individual, and here let me heartily congratulate Ms. Idamay Farrington, who has worked tirelessly at preparing that team for the competition. “Preparing” is the operative word here, as competing teams with their managers and coaches and, yes, they do have managers and coaches, study and practice for one year to prepare themselves for this Knowledge Bowl, but the results are obvious and you can be certain that these young culinarians will enter the practical field with all the theoretical knowledge required to propel them at a rapid pace.
Special congratulations are also in store for Ms. Farrington as well, as she just successfully completed her Certified Executive Chef (CEC) and Certified Culinary Educator (CCE) exams at ChefConnect: Charlotte; she was also the winner of this year’s most prestigious Cutting Edge Award, which celebrates the achievement of people doing great things in moving the industry forward in their region.
I look forward to the day when we too can be the change and assist in having a team or teams from Barbados representing in this Knowledge Bowl competition, as just like the Jeopardy programme, nothing makes you more proud than to sit in the audience at such an event and be able to say, “Yup, I knew that answer…”, even if it came a bit later than the competitors’.
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(Peter Edey is a Worldchefs Certified Executive Chef; a Certified Executive Chef with the American Culinary Federation; a graduate of l’École Ritz Escoffier, Paris and a Certified Caribbean Hospitality Trainer [email protected])
