 January 1999 -- Culinary Connection By: Jeffrey Cousminer Be prepared to add a new word to your vocabulary - "culinology." What exactly does this term mean? Webster's defines it as...well, it's not actually in Webster's, or any other dictionary that I'm aware of - yet. Even my laptop's spell-checker tells me "status: unknown word." Foods of this kind were first developed for retail outlets such as the local supermarket. But with the explosion in the number of fast-food restaurants, all competing for a bigger share of the dine-out dollar, culinology now includes the expertise necessary to produce restaurant-quality foods for restaurants as well as for retail establishments. Like most chefs who have gotten into the research end of the business, I started my career in restaurants, doing an assortment of jobs over the years - waiting tables, tending bar and developing menus - and holding positions ranging from prep cook and garde-manger to catering manager. I reached the pinnacle of my restaurant career early in 1983, when I was hired to open the kitchen at The Frog and The Peach restaurant in New Brunswick, NJ (still one of the top five restaurants in the state, even 14 years after my departure). That was my last restaurant job. I heard the siren call of culinology, and couldn't resist the temptation to answer it - not that I had any idea of what I was getting myself into. However, driven to succeed, eventually I became a project leader myself. I helped commercialize over 300 products spanning nearly two dozen different product categories. These included novel products; line extensions and base brand improvements; shelf-stable, retorted meals; frozen and refrigerated meals; dry mixes; low pH hot-fills; frozen microwaveable finger foods; and new products/line extensions for the Birds Eye, Stove Top, Shake 'N Bake, Oscar Mayer, Minute Rice, Ronzoni and Good Seasons brands. This development work required making use of everything I had ever been taught about food processing equipment and methodologies, food-borne toxicants, allergens, spoilage organisms, flavor enhancement, texture modification, film-forming agents, commercial meat processing, modified atmosphere packaging, freeze/thaw stability, retort processing, consumer testing, dry blending, organoleptic analysis, least-cost formulation, regulatory issues and ingredient labeling. It wasn't textbook theory anymore - tens of thousands of people were actually going to eat this stuff. It had to be safe, it had to be affordable, it had to be "convenient" and it had to taste good. Next, I became director of product development for Horizon Foods, a Massachusetts manufacturer of microwaveable frozen snack food products. One of the challenges presented to me was making a microwaveable frozen "French fry," made out of extruded dough, taste like a McDonald's fry. Yeah, right! What else was on this agenda, turning lead into gold? How in the world do you begin? The first step is very "low tech" - you taste. Compare the flavor, texture, appearance and aroma of your technological marvel against the "real McCoy." List the differences, and objectively rate how similar or dissimilar your product is to the target. Then take out your alchemist's tools and begin concocting. So what's all this got to do with culinology? Just this: Those pseudo French fries were created by an engineer who was playing around with a twin-screw extruder. He came up with a process (which he patented, no less) yielding a product that could be shaped and cooked like a French fry, then frozen and re-heated in a microwave oven, while still maintaining the texture of a freshly fried McDonald's fry. Just one problem - it bore no resemblance to a French fry of any kind, least of all the gold standard. Yes, it maintained a certain amount of crispness in the microwave, but it looked like a cigarette butt, it was greasy and it tasted like fried bread. The inventor had fallen into a trap; he presumed that you could divorce the product from the process. In fact, they are not, and can never be, independent of one another, at least not in the business of food manufacturing. It's wonderful to invent a better mouse trap, but if it doesn't catch mice, or if it doesn't even look like it'll catch mice, you'll be out of business faster there you can say "eek!" Ultimately, after six months of experimenting and making product and process modifications from both a culinary and a technical standpoint, I made the product more natural-looking by cutting the pieces longer and thinner out of the extruder. I reduced the oiliness by coating them in a film-forming starch and frying them in a solid shortening instead of a liquid oil. I even made them taste vaguely potato-like, thanks to my friendly neighborhood flavor company. But no matter, after one bite nobody would ever mistake these for French fries. Eventually, I scrapped the process entirely, and invented a way (which I patented, no less) of stabilizing the texture of real shoestring potatoes so that they came out of the microwave looking, tasting, smelling and crunching like the McDonald's target. And that's the story of how one culinologist evolved. But what about the rest of the discipline? Tom Pearson, Ph.D., professor and director of graduate programs in the restaurant, hotel, institutional and tourism management department of Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, graciously volunteered to undertake the study. His results were interesting, and not surprisingly, not unequivocal. It seems there is no single "typical" set of descriptors for a prototypical research chef/culinologist. Rather, there are two. One describes a more research-directed culinologist, primarily involved in the commercial development of new products and processes. This type possesses strong food-ingredient knowledge and culinary expertise. The second type of culinologist is more management-focused, and is involved in strategic planning, working with customers and doing presentations. However, these are the extreme edges of a broad continuum of blended responsibilities and expertise. So what, in fact, are little culinologists made of? Pearson's study found that our members exhibited 46 "knowledge competencies," 38 "skill and ability competencies" and 23 "behavior competencies." The most statistically significant competencies, in order of mean response, were: * A sense of taste. * Culinary education or training at establishments such as the Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, NY; Johnson and Wales University, Providence, RI; and Nicholls State University, Thibodaux, LA. With the newly created discipline of culinology, and the growing recognition of the RCA, we are finding our voice, formalizing our purpose and setting the course for those who will follow us. In the course of evolution, successful life-forms don't just survive, they go on to reproduce themselves for generations. We who not only survived, but prospered from the early challenges of learning and practicing our craft in the often harsh environment of the "corporate primordium," now have an obligation to light the way for the next generation. By the way, Culinology just happens to be the official name of the RCA newsletter. Just thought you'd like to know. Over a dozen years ago, I walked out of my last restaurant kitchen and embarked on a strange and interesting journey that has culminated in my becoming a research chef. I wanted to use my culinary expertise to create better processed foods than were currently available. I knew that this would require additional education. I thought that surely out there, somewhere, was a school that could teach me how to become a research chef, a school that taught the science behind the food I had been preparing in restaurants. What I found out shocked me. The two disciplines that embraced my interests, culinary arts and food science, did not overlap. One food science department head tersely told me that a food science degree should not include any culinary classes - a food scientist doesn't need to know how to be pastry chef! In fact, it appeared that many in the culinary field, especially chefs, distrusted the processed-food world as much as the scientists and technologists in the processed-food arena seemed to distrust chefs. I found this baffling, as the two disciplines are two sides of the same coin - food. Not long ago, it was difficult to imagine a set path for becoming a research chef. But today's culinary student has opportunities unavailable to many of us who worked our way up through the ranks in the past. One of the most promising developments is the recent establishment of an organization that addresses the issues and needs of research chefs working in the processed-food and chain-restaurant environments. This organization, the Research Chefs Association (RCA), actively promotes the integration of culinary arts and science, and is an excellent source of information and advice. In a little over three years, this organization has grown to over 300 members who, like me, have found themselves working in new, uncharted territory. This uncharted territory is undergoing more scrutiny as more chefs become interested in food processing. At the same time, industry has become more interested in hiring research chefs. To help this process, RCA has set criteria for becoming a Certified Research Chef(. This definition should help schools and students alike understand what the career entails. Colleges and universities have begun to offer classes designed to teach chefs food science, and teach food scientists some basic culinary skills. For both types of student, this additional knowledge base is becoming critical to research and development careers. To become an apprentice research chef, it is critical to work on the production side in the restaurant industry, to get a culinary arts degree and to take food science classes. Unfortunately, no single school offers a complete training and educational program or curriculum in how to become a research chef. A single curriculum is still a few years off. There has been, however, some progress made in this direction. Here are some select course offerings: Many other programs probably exist, and I look forward to hearing about them. As a member of the board of directors for the Research Chefs Association, I hope many more programs will be created for this new and exciting field. The line that once divided the processed food industry from the restaurant industry is rapidly blurring, so it is imperative to instruct new research chefs. For students to be trained most effectively, industry and academia must work closely to ensure the quality of education and to meet industry objectives. © 1999 by Weeks Publishing Company |
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