Cooking Schools Hotter Than Ever - cooking resource

Cooking Schools Hotter Than Ever

By Jay Fitzgerald And Donna Goodison
Wednesday, March 8, 2006, from Boston Herald

Area cooking schools are sizzling hot these days due to a huge surge in demand from high school students, adults wanting to make career changes and those who just want to be the Emeril of their own kitchens.

¡°There are people who just come in and say, ¡®I¡¯ve always wanted to cook,¡¯ ¡± said Roberta Dowling, executive director of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts.

The cooking school has seen a nearly 90 percent enrollment increase in its part-time courses over the past two years.

Degree enrollment at Newbury College¡¯s Roger A. Saunders School of Hotel & Restaurant Management is up 10 percent from last year, according to dean Damon Revelas. The Brookline school offers an associate¡¯s degree in culinary arts, and a bachelor¡¯s degree in hotel, restaurant and service management.

¡°If you take a look at all the hotels that are being built in Boston and the competition you see in the restaurant industry, our partners see such a need for qualified people who understand the industry,¡± Revelas said.

Meanwhile, Career Education Corp., which operates Le Cordon Bleu Schools of North America, senses the trend in Boston and plans to bring a new culinary cooking school to Cambridge.

¡°We see a great opportunity in Boston and look forward to bringing the Le Cordon Bleu gold-standard brand name to culinary education in the Boston area,¡± the Hoffman Estates, Ill., company said in a statement. ¡°We are currently awaiting the authorization to proceed with the necessary applications for the cooking school.¡±

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment within the food-preparation industry is expected to grow between 9 percent and 17 percent between 2004 and 2014, with new positions created primarily due to the expansion of the family-casual dining segment.

All of that means there¡¯s a need for more chefs, cooks, caterers and others with training.

At Rhode Island¡¯s Johnson & Wales University, applications for the culinary arts program are up 20 percent over the past three years - and the school has decided to boost enrollment to 2,149, an increase of about 7 percent, according to school officials.

¡°Cooking has become respected and prestigious,¡± said Maureen Dumas, who, like other experts credit the late Julia Child and, more recently, chefs on the Food Network, such as Emeril ¡°Bam!¡± Lagasse, for sparking interest in cooking.

¡°It¡¯s not unusual to be in a (class kitchen) with a lawyer, a high-tech executive and an engineer. They just love to cook,¡± said Dowling.

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