Culinary arts refers to the preparation, cooking, and serving of foods at different levels of life, be it on a professional or domestic level. It involves a thorough study of the culinary arts field and practical activities. It focuses on both the taste of the food and how good the food looks. Culinary arts have developed over the past from a simple and primitive mode of cooking to modern art. Today foods are a component of different ingredients, diet, taste, and even design to suit the needs of consumers, especially in the hospitality industry. The art refers to how efficient a professional performs in the kitchen, including the ability to create new meals, safety in the kitchen, ability to cook nutritious foods, and many more (Ekincek, Sema, and Semra, p. 110)
The main reason people prepare meals is for the sustainability of life. Culinary arts play a part in ensuring that humans don’t starve. Food is a basic need, and culinary arts provide a means through which we sustain life. Apart from the role of sustenance of life, culinary arts has diversified recently to provide additional benefits to customers and professionals taking part in it. Studying or undertaking culinary arts is important since cooking is a form of art, and individuals in the culinary industry learn to appreciate it. It allows customers to recognize the cooking skills of the professionals in the industry. Just like painting requires different preciseness and skills, culinary also employs a variety of skills to produce a final product in the food with aroma, taste, and nutrients. The cooking skills allow professionals to be careful while preparing, cooking, and serving food to satisfy customers’ needs.
Studying culinary arts helps recognize different cultures (Gillis, Whibbs, and Li, p.72). Food and culture often go together since different cultures, people cook diverse meals and have multiple ways of cooking them to give a unique taste. Culturally recipes are passed down from one person to the other. Culinary arts will shed light on how such foods are prepared and served. Understanding people’s cultures through food will help spread an appreciation of cultures to different people and thus promote cohesion and shunning discrimination. It is also a new form of spreading love to customers. Professional chefs provide meals that customers appreciate while they are away from home.
Promotion of healthy living. Nutrition is an area of interest today, especially where lifestyle diseases have become prone and forced people to want to eat and live healthily. Therefore culinary programs have incorporated nutrition to promote a healthy lifestyle. Recently, chefs have emphasized the provision of healthy foods to their customers. They cook and serve foods that are delicious, healthy, and nutritious. Restaurants today are moving towards more vegetables and fruits meals which is different from before when fries and meat products were in demand. Through programs such as farm-to-table in notable food joints and restaurants, it promotes environmental awareness and responsibility to their customers.
Being a culinary arts professional can offer an opportunity to travel the world and explore different countries or regions. Qualifying as a chef can allow you to apply for a job anywhere. While traveling around the world for work purposes, this could be an opportunity to gain new experiences of different places. Traveling in the process of working as a professional chef in many parts of the country and world opens one to diverse people.
Opportunity to learn from different professionals in the same field. Being in the culinary arts profession gives an individual a chance to learn not from one but many other professionals with different skills and abilities. Learning from different professionals offers multiple sets of skills to an individual. At the same time, it has an overall positive impact on your career as a chef.
Generally, culinary art is an important field that will help someone expand their boundaries in different ways. Professional interaction does not only offer you an opportunity to become a professional. It promotes appreciation of diverse foods subject to art, culture, adventure, and health that customers receive through culinary skills and efforts. Culinary arts are also a crucial part of sustaining life and thus continuity. It is a fun profession as it enables individuals to learn and enjoy at the same time through interaction with others and also credit in quality service delivery to others.
Works Cited
Ekincek, Sema, and Semra Günay Aktaş. “An Evaluation of Chefs’ Views on the Culinary Arts and Design Processes.” Heritage Tourism Beyond Borders and Civilizations. Springer, Singapore, 2020. 101-113.
Gillis, L., R. Whibbs, and A. Li. “Future chefs’ beliefs on the role of nutrition, diet, and healthy cooking techniques in culinary arts training for foodservice: a cross-cultural and gender perspective.” Journal of Culinary Science & Technology 20.1 (2022): 71-85.
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