Good never ceases to be the object of fascination for people. We’ve seen some dishing out excellent dishes on their cooking shows, some guy raising hell in his kitchen, a bunch of chefs trying to best each other in cooking contests, a couple of more creating disaster while they’re holding a knife, or even an entire TV network created solely for food.
With all these happening, it won’t come as surprise that this fascination about food would translate into an increased interest of people in cooking. This is an interesting trend, if you would look at the numbers. Five or six years ago, culinary arts and other studies related food are in the decline. It is a different story today, with culinary courses among the top choices of graduating students and those seeking additional education.
The reason that most of these culinary hopefuls give for studying in this field is because of Gordon Ramsay’s show, shorts on Heston Blumenthal, Food Network, and other personalities that they get to see on TV. This would be the answer to the problem faced by culinary schools in the past: the profession has a very low public profile. Now, with TV networks churning out various shows related to food, and the celebrity status achieved by the likes of Anthony Bourdain and Alton Brown, culinary arts have become an attractive course.
The probable downside of this trend is the expectations. Because most people equate culinary arts with being famous or popular, they might get disappointed once they get down to the task of learning itself. Cooking is both an art and science, and good chefs know that they need to be good at both. They would also need to spend years honing their craft in order to stand on the same level with the big names in the culinary world.
It is an issue that may need some addressing. It is good to learn how to cook well, but if the number of people studying the art is only there for the popularity and the money, then that would be create some problems in the near future. A bubble burst might be in the making.