Attitudes and beliefs about how chefs can promote nutrition and sustainable food systems among students at a US culinary school

Objective: Chefs have the potential to influence diet quality and food systems sustainability through their work. We aimed to assess the attitudes and perceptions of culinary students about nutrition and sustainability as part of their roles, responsibilities and future work as chefs. Design: We surveyed students attending the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in the fall of 2019 (n 546). Descriptive statistics compared food priority rankings and Likert-scale distributions of nutrition and sustainability attitudes and beliefs. Adjusted generalized linear models were used to evaluate whether there were differences in attitudes and beliefs across demographic groups. Setting: The Culinary Institute of America, a private, not-for-profit college and culinary school with US campuses in New York, California, and Texas. Subjects: Students ≥18 years old currently enrolled in any of the school’s associate’s or bachelor’s degree programs. Results: Students agreed that chefs should be knowledgeable about nutrition (96.0%) and the environmental impact of their ingredients (90.8%) but fewer considered healthfulness (57.8%) and environmental impact (60.2%) of their food to be primary considerations in their career as a chef. Taste was the primary factor influencing culinary students’ food choices but food priorities differed by race/ethnicity. Conclusions: Culinary students believe nutrition and sustainability are important. Opportunities exist to empower them with knowledge and skills for promoting public health and sustainable food systems in their future work as chefs.

Teaching Research Skills to Vocational Learners: Teaching Chefs to Research

This article focuses on teaching and mentoring course-based undergraduate research in a vocationally focused higher education setting. At the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), students are immersed in hands-on experiential classes. Their education begins with basic culinary techniques, and they gradually progress toward more specialized cooking skills such as the techniques of specific world regions or the production of specialty products such as chocolates and wedding cakes. The author discusses pedagogical techniques used to teach these learners, who are not the usual participants in independent research projects during a senior capstone. This article examines how to blend and utilize hands-on, experiential activities as part of teaching data gathering and the research process.

Ernest Leslie Ransome

Ernest L. Ransome is a famous but often misunderstood 19th century California engineer and builder. Architectural historians and engineering professionals see him as a central figure in developing reinforced concrete as a usable building material decades before its use became prevalent. He is most commonly recognized as building the first reinforced concrete bridge, San Francisco's Alvord Lake Bridge, which was built in 1890 and is still in use. Historical accounts of his work, however, are based chiefly upon secondary sources and are sometimes incorrect or misleading. This article clarifies Ransome's true role in concrete building in California and debunks misinformation about the famous Alvord Lake Bridge. It traces his career in the United States (he emigrated to California in 1870 at the age of 26), first as a manufacturer of imitation stone and later as a builder of increasingly large and complex buildings and structures. It discusses his work on a series of iconic Northern California buildings and structures: the 1888 Bourn Winery (now the Culinary Institute of America school in St. Helena); the 1890 Torpedo Building, still standing on the Oakland side of Yerba Buena Island; the 1890 Alvord Lake Bridge and its near twin the Conservatory Bridge, both still in use in Golden Gate Park; the 1891 Art Museum, now being used as the Canter Center on the Stanford University campus. It also discusses Ransome's partnership with Sidney Cushing, a railroad magnate in Marin County for whom the Cushing Amphitheater on Mt. Tamalpais was named, and Francis Marion “Borax” Smith, who built the borax industry in Death Valley and who founded and owned the Key System transit in the East Bay. The article concludes with observations about Ransome's true place in the history of concrete engineering in the United States and concrete construction in California.