CIA Trains Next Generation of Chefs during Pandemic
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants have been one of the hardest-hit business sectors, but students at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, NY are continuing to pursue their degrees with the hope of an industry resurgence once the pandemic is over.
“The food industry is struggling right now, and that’s something that we do discuss in class,” says Aurora Samsel ’21, a baking and pastry arts major. “But even so, nothing has been taken away from us in terms of our education. Aside from daily temperature checks, face shields, and social distancing, the CIA has tried to make the classroom as normal as possible.”
While the restaurant industry has suffered, the classroom experience — or in this case, the kitchen experience — hasn’t faltered in training students for their careers within it. “The chefs are still preparing us to be the best we can be so we are still going to be employable when we graduate,” says Paige Misson ’24, an applied food studies major. This includes everything from meat identification lessons to rolling gnocchi, deboning fish, and tasting each other’s recipes.
Like most colleges and universities, the CIA has been forced to adapt its classes to adhere to COVID protocols and safety guidelines. Every morning, after completing a health screening, students are given an amusement park-style wristband that allows them to enter the academic buildings. Face shields and masks must be worn in the kitchens, and the lecture portions of classes are held on Zoom.
“I feel like learning can be a little less intuitive with all of these rules and equipment, but for the most part students are getting very similar education,” says culinary arts and food business management major Allyssa Heilbrun ’22. “The kitchens are operating the same, if not better.”
Despite Zoom fatigue and the challenges that nearly all professors face with online learning, many CIA students feel like there are advantages to COVID-safe classes.
“Lab class sizes are a little smaller, which gives us a little more time to have face-to-face interaction with the chef,” says Samsel. “We’re still given a lot of time to learn and practice different techniques.”
The CIA’s labs or cooking classes operate like commercial kitchens — up to the standards of the professional chefs who serve as their professors. So students have experience in the traditionally high-stress, fast-paced environment.
Students who are pursuing careers as chefs also get a large portion of their hands-on experience at the CIA’s on-campus restaurants. While the restaurants are currently closed to the public, they are still open to students. “We may not be making the same amount of food as usual,” says Samsel. “But we still get some of an idea of what it is like to work in a restaurant.”
CIA students now get to dine at the five-star-quality restaurants in exchange for their dining points — not only serving as customers for their fellow students, but also enjoying a three-course meal better than what’s served at the dining hall. “There’s still plenty of business for the students in the restaurant semester of their degree,” says Heilbrun. “There are times where reservations are completely filled.”
Trayton Tepedelen ’24, a culinary arts and applied food studies major, notes that the most enjoyable part of studying at the CIA is working with other students and interacting in the kitchen. “COVID, thankfully, hasn’t really changed the chances we have to do that,” he says. “The restaurant industry took a hard hit and it will take a while to build it back up. But after COVID, it’ll bounce back because people are going to want to go out to eat more than ever. And we’ll be prepared for those job opportunities.”
