Rebel with a Cause: A Fresh Approach to Culinary Arts

Our neighbors to the south have launched a culinary arts program designed to train chefs to collaborate with farmers.

By Joel Salatin

 

 

I recently traveled to Chatham County, North Carolina, the epicenter of a local food revolution. Central Carolina Community College, which has offered a sustainable agriculture associate degree for nearly a decade, has now added the next permutation: a “natural chef” culinary arts degree.

The college asked me to come to the Pittsboro campus recently to kick off this groundbreaking program. The biggest room they could find seats 150. Held on a weeknight during the week of July 4, it drew nearly 500 people—many sat on the lawn listening to loudspeakers.

Pittsboro is also home of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, a 1,200-member powerhouse that serves the local, ecologically based food system. It is only natural that this effort would be conceived and launched in such an area.

The mission statement of this new degree program includes four objectives:

1. To train culinary professionals in basic culinary techniques with an emphasis on local food systems, in-season food preparation, fundamentals of nutrition, and the connection between food and wellness.
2. To develop leadership in the region and beyond for the promotion of Natural Chef programs, holistic education, and whole foods culinary advancement, for consumers and professionals.
3. To promote education of nutrition standards for all students and faculties through workshops, literature, community events, and to be a resource for whole foods information.
4. To promote the connection between local sustainable farms and future culinary professions.

In addition to standard courses such as Culinary Math and Basic Menu Planning, the program offers this gem: Farm to Fork/Seasonal Foods/Organic/Preserving/Slow Food.

To say that I was jazzed about this program would be the understatement of the year. The faculty and staff did not know of a similar program anywhere. Since the school maintains a farm for its sustainable agriculture program right outside the kitchen doors, it was a natural marriage to wed the farm to the kitchen. What’s more amazing is that in our culture, this farm-oriented arrangement was normal until just a few decades ago.

That these students will not be besieged by industrial institutional chefs showing them how to take culinary shortcuts with prepared frozen dough and pre-boxed heat-and-eat dinners is truly refreshing. As more culinary professionals enter kitchens armed with the savviness and understanding this program will provide, all I can say is, “Look out, Archer Daniels Midland. You’re going down.”

Most institutional culinary professionals are completely intimidated by the local food option. They don’t believe farmers can actually provide them with food. After all, food comes from a truck—the same truck that brings toilet paper and chicken nuggets in the shape of Dino the dinosaur.

One of my most poignant memories of working directly with a chef dates back more than 20 years when Lisa Joy, chef at the Joshua Wilton House in Harrisonburg, met me at a cold storage facility to off-load a side of beef. (The restaurant freezer wasn’t big enough for all of it.) I backed up my pickup truck next to two tractor trailers loaded with boxed, frozen “banquet meals” for other restaurants. Lisa and I had quite a belly laugh over the contrast between what she was doing in her kitchen and what most chefs do in theirs.

To think that now we might actually have accredited institutions training and graduating more chefs like Lisa is almost more than I can imagine. When this new generation of chefs hits the mainstream, watch out Sysco. It won’t be business as usual. Having walked the farm, acquired the products, scratch-prepared the meals, and savored the results, these young chefs won’t be content to go back to prepared, processed, industrialized, irradiated, genetically prostituted, amalgamated, extruded, dyed, and artificially flavored mush.

They will figure out how to punch through liability requirements, food police, distribution headaches, and raw-ingredient logistics to offer their clientele nutrient-dense, transparent, community-imbedded menus. That will be good for all of us. Let the revolution continue.

Internationally acclaimed farmer, conference speaker, and author Joel Salatin and his family operate Polyface Farms in Augusta County near Staunton, Virginia.

 

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