Thread:Opening Discussion on the Culinary Education Project (1)

I am opening discussion on the shape and objectives of this project. There are many possible agendas to work on that can cross-reference and support goals to be achieved.

Culinary Education began in the home kitchen providing food to family members, travellers and guests, then in institutions and built into a worldwide movement we recognise today. Wherever meals are produced they are expected to provide some of the basics, be they in a refugee camp, an international cruise ship or an industrial site. Today the world grapples with increasing challenges of providing food and water to a population growing in need at the opposite ends of the scale, spiralling obesity, heart disease and cancers and famine due to war, drought and floods. New seeds are being developed to withstand the pressures food production is under, for example with lower water requirements. Increasingly countries are becoming specialist food producers for specific countries. New Zealand is well known for its ability to produce milk and through Fontera www.fonterra.com/wps/wcm/connect/fonterracom/fonterra.com/Home/ is producing milk for and in China. New Zealand is a good example again of world market pressure. There are products now unavailable to the average Kiwi due to its world stage price, a good example is Snapper, now out of reach of most Kiwis have had to learn to understand and cook fish unknown to them previously. This is not an uncommon situation but can lead to costly mistakes.

Culinary Education also includes professional training. Celebrity Chefs have become known worldwide through the various social media and programmes such as Ready Steady Cook www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006vcgr/. Professional training provides careers in all areas of food provision, be that industrial, institutional or tourist. Lauded as the two best restaurants in the world El Bulli www.elbulli.com/menu.php and the Fat Duck www.thefatduck.co.uk/ have taken cookery far beyond most chefs' understanding and experience, you may know a booking at one of these restaurants is now easy to obtain, just try for the specific date you want.

Domestic or home market- the education required for the:


 * Growing produce for consumption
 * Raising chickens/fowl, pigs, sheep, cattle for domestic slaughter and consumption
 * Storing, preparing, preserving/cooking and consuming safe food
 * Involvement in the Transition Towns movement born out of Permaculture as exampled by Bowen_Island/Gardens

Professional cookery market- the education required for the:


 * Buying, storing, preparing, cooking/preserving, serving/selling and disposing of food
 * Various consumer types, food values, nutritional aspects
 * Food fashion and fads impacting on both the domestic and non-domestic consumer.
 * Provision of food for relief situations such as famine due to war, drought or flood, earthquakes, mudslides.

I suggest we contribute by deciding where our area of interest is and forming a sub-topic on that for example 'growing produce for consumption'.
I will finish by posing a question -Could_the_whole_world_eat_only_organic_food