Hudson Community College's Culinary Art Insitute Heats Up

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with Paul Dillon, Associate Dean for Business, Culinary and Hospitality at Hudson Community College, who shares what's cooking at the Culinary Arts Institute which is ranked in the top ten of culinary schools in the US.

6/8/17 #2046

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"My favorite culinary class is production in kitchen. It's basically hot food. I'm more of a cutting and cooking person than baking, so that's why I like that class. I chose culinary arts because when I cook for people I like seeing the enjoyment on their faces when they eat my food. They're diverse, they're affordable, and they're also number one in the state. Five years from now, I see myself traveling the world helping Third World countries as well as feeding the hungry. That's great stuff. Shot by our friend... well his colleagues, this is Paul Dillon, Associate Dean for Business, Culinary, and Hospitality at Hudson County Community College. Paul, my good friend, what were we looking at right there? We were looking at students at our school. We taped this in one day to promote our program. It's the best program I can think of in the nation for culinary arts. Describe it. Describe it? It's an associate's degree in Culinary Arts. It's two years. You end up completing 69 credits, a two credit course is 60 hours of instruction. So that our students are in class for six hours, two to four days a week, to complete their Culinary Arts degree. What are they learning? They're learning the humility of being a cook. What? [laughter] That's happens, Steve. What do you...? Why the humility? [laughter] Because, you know, when you cook, you use all your senses. And what you realize is you realize how little you know every time you go into the kitchen. So every time you touch that product, you pick up that piece of equipment, there are variables that you can control, and that you cannot control. Right. So it's humbling, because a lot of things can go wrong with that. But a lot of things can work really well. What kind of jobs are out there for these students once they graduate? Oh there's so many different kinds of jobs now. Whether they want to go into catering, hotels, sales, food science, nutrition, all over the board. We cannot place our students right now. We have... we can't place our students because there's too many jobs for them. We... Right. The externships are important, aren't they? Well we require 600 hours of externships for students... Describe typical "externships". Externships, well, it's 150 hours over the course of one semester, where the students are working in a location... The location has to be approved, so they can't go to B & J's Deli, and just, you know, work the deli. Right. Right right. It has to be an approved location. Part of it can be in the front of the house, and part of it can be in..."