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Chef Training for the Artist
Combine your artistic abilities with your love for food. Enroll in a culinary school and get chef training to learn how to make tasteful food presentations that are culinary works of art.
Many chef jobs require the preparation of complicated recipes with exotic ingredients. According to top chefs, however, the visual artistry of your food may be just as important as the taste. Chef training can teach you how to make even simple dishes into visually delightful compositions.
Food as Art
The idea of food as art is not a new concept. Culinary schools have been teaching sculpture techniques in chocolate, pulled sugar, and pastillage (powdered sugar, cornstarch, and gelatin) for a long time. Each year, top-notch teams of chefs envision and create chocolate and sugar sculpture masterpieces to vie for top honors at national and international competitions.
Let Them Eat Cake
Wedding cakes have always been elaborate creations, but today's pastry chef training has upped the ante on creative wedding cake decoration. Decorations can include colorful flowers that look real, intricate lacy ribbons and garlands, and an infinite variety of other edible artwork adornments. You can even use an airbrush to apply edible designs in silver or gold.
Show me the Food
In addition to teaching the art of chocolate and sugar sculpture, pastry chef training also teaches essential food presentation techniques. Culinary school should teach you to use differently colored and textured food to create artistically arranged culinary extravaganzas, surrounded by contrasting palettes of saucy dots, swirls, and accents. Simply placing food in tidy piles on a plate is no longer the accepted way to present an entree, salad, or dessert. Chef training can teach you how to showcase both your culinary skills and your artistic skills. At culinary school, you learn how to prepare a wide variety of delicious dishes that satisfy the palate and, just as important, learn now to present those dishes in visually unique and engaging ways.
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About the Author
Judi Sandall is a technical writer and a regular Chef School Review columnist. Judi has also worked as a training consultant on contracts with Duke University and Bell Atlantic. She is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, with a BA in English Literature.
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