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PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) — It's loud. It's alternately hot and cold. It can be messy. You stand on your feet all day. The hours are long. Time is always of the essence. Who would want a job like that?
Such is the work environment that can be expected for graduates of Indiana University of Pennsylvania's culinary academy. But aspiring culinarians are signing up to learn the ins and outs of cooking in high numbers.
Applications at the culinary school in Punxsutawney are up around 21 percent, according to Jim Begany, vice president for enrollment at IUP. That increase is in contrast to the dropping number of high school graduates in western Pennsylvania.
The Food Network could be part of the reason for the interest in culinary arts. It's available to 83.3 percent of U.S. households with TVs, according to Nielsen estimates from February 2015.
It's also an industry with solid growth. Leisure and hospitality is the third-highest industry for new jobs between 2014 and 2024, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Food preparation and serving jobs are expected to increase 7 percent in that time frame, from 12.5 to 13.3 million jobs, which is about average for all occupations in the U.S.
It's a wide-ranging and challenging occupation, according to Kristin Butterworth, who is a graduate of the culinary academy at IUP and chef de cuisine at Lautrec, at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Farmington. The high-end, European-American restaurant is one of only 27 restaurants in the world to receive the Five-Diamond award from AAA and the Five-Star rating from Forbes Travel Guide.
She said cooking demands require a chef to be passionate about the work.
"Cooking is not a 9 to 5 kind of job," she wrote in an email. "It requires long hours, commitment and is often physically demanding."
"The job rarely ends for me when I walk out of the door at the end of the day because my time spent out of the kitchen is about mentally preparing myself for the next day. Mental timelines, menu writing and gathering inspiration from cookbooks, blogs, magazines, culinary shows on TV or even dining elsewhere I feel are necessity in maintaining that excitement and passion that is necessary to keep you successful. A good chef is one that is constantly bettering themselves by learning and educating themselves and others."
With so much to learn in such a demanding environment, students have to be ready to perform by the time they step into a real kitchen.
Nick Karas, part of the owning family of Nap's Cucina Mia and Josephine's in downtown Indiana, said his mother, Mary Jo Karas, has used students and graduates from IUP's culinary program since Nap's opened in 1992. Right now, four culinary students work between the two restaurants. Josephine's opened in 2015, and Karas decided to increase the number of student workers.
"It just seemed like the obvious place to find kids that were young and eager to learn and committed to the craft."
"Those kids are really well-prepared. They know pretty much how to do everything. They know how to cook. I don't have to teach them how to cook. I don't have to teach them knife skills. They know how to break down an onion and they know how to break down a chicken or a sardine or whatever it is they get handed."
He agreed that the job can be physically demanding. The Nap's kitchen is tiny, there's room for only two or three at a time.
"It's important when working in the kitchens that you learn what I call 'The Dance.' You have to treat the shift, at least during the rush, like you're an athlete or a dancer.
"It's an athletic experience to be able to work in a tight kitchen when it comes to intuition; learning where the other person is going to be and how to move around so that nobody gets hurt and food can go out as quickly as possible."
Chef Lynn Pike, IUP Culinary Academy's interim chairwoman, said people don't get the full story of what it takes to be a chef from their favorite cooking shows. It requires meticulous planning, with some dishes taking many days to marinate or age ingredients.
"Part of the problem is it's so available on TV. I think people still don't have an understanding that the shows and the things they see on TV are way different than what it is to actually have the job, to be a cook or a culinarian, to be a chef in the industry. It is a lot of hard work."
On top of the physical demands, chefs and cooks must have strong technical knowledge and experience working with the ingredients.
Chef John Kapusta, assistant professor, said he stresses quality in his classes.
He said students at other culinary schools may only get to watch a demo and only a portion of the class will get hands-on experience by assisting. At the culinary academy in Punxsutawney, not so. The students watch a demo then replicate it themselves from start to finish. And that's after they sit through morning lectures.
Kapusta and some of his students can be seen at the Indiana's Cookin' event, a Gazette program that benefits the ICCAP food bank, on April 5. They'll be demonstrating quick and easy meals. There will be shows at 4 and 7 p.m. in the Toretti Auditorium of the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex. Doors open at 3 p.m. for the vendor sale, with more than 20 vendors from caterers to decorators until 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 each and available at the Gazette, KCAC box office, Valeski's BiLo, Tate's and www.indianagazette.com. Online tickets are $9.
Students spend three semesters at the academy itself for the culinary arts program and the fourth at a paid externship. There is also an option for a baking and pastry arts program that spans two semesters.
The kitchen is not quite the classroom. The culinary program could be likened in some ways to the art department in the College of Fine Arts. The students work side-by-side with each other on their creations, which will then be on display for the entire class to see. Students in a traditional class often enjoy the privacy of the teacher being the only one to see their work. In culinary, as in fine arts, a student's triumphs and screw-ups are public for all to see.
It's also much more regimented than other programs in other departments at IUP. Students wear uniforms, glass windows look into each lab classroom from the hallway and students are in session for several hours at a time, mostly on their feet. This is all a part of the conditioning to prepare students for the real world of cooking.
That, in combination with the academy's Punxs'y location, sets the culinary program apart from the experience of a more traditional major at the main campus in Indiana.
IUP's culinary school has managed to place its students in some high-level eateries throughout the country. There's a strong contingent of graduates at The Biltmore Estate in North Carolina and at Nemacolin. Jeremy Critchfield, a 1993 graduate, is the chef and co-owner of the Stone House Inn in Farmington. The chef de cuisine at the acclaimed Jamonera in Philadelphia is Lindsay McClain (Walsh), a 2007 graduate. And that only skims the surface.
Ian McIsaac is an admissions counselor and recruiter for the College of Culinary Arts. His job is a little bit different from a typical college recruiter — he can be found more in technology centers of local school districts rather than courting at a typical high school college fair. He graduated from IUP in 2005 with a degree in culinary arts and hospitality management. He also worked for Nap's Cucina Mia.
He said he's not identified major trends in the incoming culinary classes but he is recruiting more heavily in eastern parts of the state.
"It's hard to say because the culinary program is unique from year to year where the students are coming from," he said.
Still, he said, the majority of students come from western Pa.
Students who complete the culinary degree will have 42 credits to put toward a hospitality management degree, giving them a broader view of the industries in which they will be working.
IUP's culinary academy is also significantly cheaper than some other culinary programs at places like Culinary Institute of America. The three semesters at IUP will cost a student $26,784 for the program, not counting board and food, where CIA can cost about $60,000 for an associate's degree at the New York campus.
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Information from: The Indiana Gazette, http://www.indianagazette.com
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