The Opportunity of a Lifetime - Italy or France?

Day is just dawning in the small rural town of Colorno in the heart of Emilia Romagna and 30 George Brown Chef School students greet it many hours before their normal rising time.  Why?  To taste the warm curds made from morning milk that will produce the finest of Italian cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano.  No ‘Power Point' here, instead students stand shoulder to shoulder with masters in a local cooperative, Caseificio San Salvatore, digesting the details of cheese making.  Hundreds of miles away another group of George Brown Chef School students gather at the base of one of Burgundy's oldest and most revered hillsides in the small village of Tian Hermitage.  The town has the boozy aura of a harvest just complete.  Like their peers in Italy, they are under the tutelage of a world leader in biodynamic wine making, the Chapoutier family.  They gaze upon this hillside with its small, diverse, and in some cases, ancient vines that continue to produce the headiest of Burgundian offerings.  All of this happens when education gets a passport, boards a plane and goes to the source  - just another September day in the field for students in the French and Italian Culinary Arts post-graduate program.  This scholarly innovation is defining George Brown Chef School as a North American leader in integrated international education.

For many of these students it is their first time abroad and the excitement of knowing an ingredient, a flavour or a place is palatable.  Under these conditions the learning is easy and done with a spirit of great gusto.  For students in the French and Italian Culinary Arts programs, it is the immediacy of the experience they seek and the ensuing quality of knowledge they posses that future employers will demand.

Both post-graduate offerings at George Brown Chef School are forged through partnerships with international leaders in culinary education; ALMA, La Scuola Internationale di Cucina Italiana located just outside of Parma and the Institut Paul Bocuse, located in a suburb of Lyon.  That both of these schools reside in areas known for gastronomical excellence is no accident.  It is precisely this commitment to excellence and authenticity that attracts George Brown Chef School.  For two weeks every September, both schools open their doors to Canadian students from the two post-graduate programs and serve them up intensive studies in their finest culinary offerings.  Cheese and wine are a given, but so too the preparation of the lightest of Ricotta Gnocchi in Italy or preparing ‘Supreme de Poularde aux Ecrevisses' with ‘Poulet de Bresse' in France.  Students return to their stoves in Canada forever enriched and inspired.

Expanding on its innovative post-graduate offerings, George Brown Chef School will launch in May 2008, a complimentary academic offering to the current French Culinary Arts program.  Professor Adrian Caravello, a specialist in wine and service, is creating a post-graduate program for Food & Beverage and Advanced Wine and Beverage Management graduates.  Students will undertake studies in French wines and winemaking techniques by traveling to some of France's most esteemed vineyards and renowned wine schools.  These students will travel alongside, and at times study with, students enrolled in the French Culinary Arts program.  Professor Caravello traveled to France with the French Culinary Arts program in 2007 with the intention of forging strong alliances for this new program.  This addition creates a more holistic study of French food and wine culture and marks the first time that hospitality and culinary graduates study side by side in post-graduate education.

If you know a Culinary Arts, Food and Beverage or Advanced Wine and Beverage Management graduate currently working in the industry who is looking to enhance their skills through international education please direct them to the following links for more program information:

Advanced Wine & Beverage Management - Professor Adrian Caravello
http://www.georgebrown.ca/Marketing/FTCal/hosp/H404.aspx

French Culinary Arts - Chef/Professor Deborah Reid

Italian Culinary Arts - Chef/Professor Dario Tomaselli
http://www.georgebrown.ca/Marketing/FTCal/chefschool/H411.aspx

Written by Chef Deborah Reid,
Professor/Coordinator French Culinary Arts, George Brown Chef School

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