Applications for culinary institutions are growing each year

F4

By Dean Bennett
THE CANADIAN PRESS

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EDMONTON - Madison Lytle, clad in a white coat and tall chef's hat, dusts off one final batch of lemon squares near a monster cook oven and muses about a career path some label a recipe for disaster.

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The Canadian Press

Isabelle Godbout, left, and her twin 17-year-old sister Jessica put some finishing touches on some cakes during a baking class at St. Joseph High School in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Canadian Press

Madison Lytle works on putting on some topping during a baking class at St. Joseph High School in Edmonton.

Greg Agnew/Times & Transcript

Brian Cuellar was styling with his hat and tresses.

"I've been told actually not to do it," says the Grade 12 student at St. Joseph High School.

"Everyone I've talked to -- parents, friends of parents -- has told me to keep it as a passion. Don't make it a profession because if you do, it loses its lustre."

Students like Lytle are jamming culinary classrooms in the Alberta capital, spurred on in part by glamorous reality TV shows such as "Hell's Kitchen" and celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver.

At the city's Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, or NAIT, three aspiring chefs are turned away for every one accepted. Twenty years ago, administrators couldn't fill all the spots.

"What school counsellors are telling us is what you're seeing on television and career aspirations have a strong correlation," says Stanley Townsend, head of NAIT's culinary arts program.

The program and the perception of cooking, he says, have changed from an institutional trade churning out menu technicians for cafeterias to a profession underpinned by science and topped with the creativity and flair of the artist.

The metamorphosis is reflected in the NAIT program's name, he says: "It has gone from being called cook training to professional cook training to the culinary arts."

At any given time, he said, 250 students -- the majority coming straight out of high school -- are learning in working kitchens complete with drop-down screens and data projectors.

At St. Joseph, baking class instructor Art Bergevin agrees that programs like "Hell's Kitchen" -- where cooks-to-be are badgered and abused by chef Gordon Ramsay before being weeded out Survivor-style -- have had a profound impact on how cooking is perceived.

"Because of all those programs, the interest has just skyrocketed," says Bergevin, who has been at his post in St. Joseph for 27 years.

Still, he says, real life in the kitchen can be an eye-opener for students who suddenly find themselves on their feet all day beside hot ovens, lugging around 27-kilogram mixing bowls.

"Some people realize they don't have the passion for it they thought they had," says 17-year-old Isabelle Godbout as she and her twin sister, Jessica -- both dressed in white smocks and hairnets -- ring the crown of a Black Forest cake with whipped cream.

Darlene Kroy, head of the school's culinary arts program, says the cooking shows along with recipes and information on the Internet, have made the modern young chef far more savvy and keen to experiment than even a decade ago.

And, she says, the young chef is a lot more likely to be male: "You see a lot of boys now -- it's not gender selective, whereas years ago it was mostly girls in food programs and the boys in industrial arts.

"The stigma is no longer there. There's an overlap and it's a healthy overlap."