Feed Your Passion

In the 1980s a new creature—the foodie—entered the cultural landscape. Given an official identity by New York writer Gael Greene, the foodie was later defined in the Official Foodie Handbook not as a professional chef, not a gourmand nor even a gourmet, but rather as a food aficionado who “eats to meet the demands of her body from the neck up, not the neck down. Mind, mouth, soul: This is where the foodie lives.”

And where better to nurture this passion for exquisitely prepared and elegantly presented food than through a multi-day “boot camp” at the Culinary Institute of America, an institution once described by Time magazine as “the Harvard of Haute Cuisine.”

“Boot camp” is an apt metaphor for a program conducted by a culinary school founded in 1946 to train soldiers returning from World War II battlefields for new peacetime occupations. But the boot camps of today are a far cry from the strenuous basic training the soldiers endured before marching off to war.

These boot camps are experienced in sparkling, well-stocked kitchens under the tutelage of accomplished chefs who instruct culinary devotees in techniques that enhance their ability to create stellar dishes at home.

The camps are offered on three of the CIA’s campuses—in St. Helena California, San Antonio Texas, and the flagship campus in Hyde Park NY—and provide hands-on cooking classes focused on everything from global cuisine to family friendly classes for parents, kids and teens.

A prerequisite for every at-home chef, the Basic Training Boot Camp gives foodies a command of classic culinary methods and techniques, including mise en place, kitchen skills, soup and stock production and sauce making. In this basic skills course, students also learn and use a variety of cooking methods such as roasting, grilling, sautéing, pan-frying, stir-frying, braising, poaching and steaming.

Each course offers a deep dive into a specific topic that helps the students, who work in small groups with other food lovers, to gain confidence and skills in the kitchen. Chef instructors introduce the various skills through lectures and technical demos and work closely with the students as they cook.

When all the cooking is done for the day, the students enjoy the results of their efforts, sitting down to a mid-afternoon repast while discussing the various techniques and recipes used.

What is served is what has been cooked. As wine writer Meg Houston Maker observed after her two-day immersion experience in making hors d’oeuvres, “the bakery class makes breads for the dining halls, the banquet class feeds a horde, the fine dining students serve visitors to the campus restaurants. Our lunch (was) twenty different hors d’oeuvres.”

A typical first day at a boot camp begins at 8AM with an orientation session and distribution of uniforms. Yes, there is a dress code: loose-fitting trousers to protect against spills; closed-toe, non-slip shoes and a shirt to wear under chef’s jacket are de rigeuer. Chefs’ jackets are provided as are aprons, side towels and a chef’s hat. Equipment needed for class is also made available for use during the program.

As is true with a military boot camp, days begin early with students on campus and assembled for lectures at 8:30AM. After a 15-minute break, the lectures segue into hands-on cooking and chef demos.

Former participants describe the cooking experience as “a whirlwind.” In one story, a student recounted the pressure of a timed final test where they attempted a complex Duck à l'Orange, relying on "Chef K" to pull it off. Another recalled the “exhausting” three-hour non-stop cooking blocks where you have to "figure it out FAST" in a professional kitchen.

The students are busily engaged in the kitchens, working through recipes under the watchful eyes of chefs and second-year culinary students until to 1PM. From 1 to 1:15 the finished dishes are plated and reviewed and the students adjourn to a dining room to eat the products of their labors and discuss the day’s activities.

Among the things the students learn is to prepare mentally and physically before starting to cook. Centering oneself for the task is termed mise en place—literally French for “put in place.” In a CIA kitchen it translates to having a clean, well-organized work station; to have read the recipe through before starting preparation and to be in a proper state of mind, physically and mentally prepared to cook.

The well-organized work station has the specialized cooking utensils for the task at hand and a clear, clean space for food preparation. Stations typically include a designated area for a sanitizer bucket and a “side towel,” which is often tucked into the cook’s apron and is used for grabbing hot pans or pulling trays from the oven—but not for wiping up spills.

Depending on the dish being prepared, stations are equipped with the appropriate pots, pans, knives and the like. Chopped, shredded, sliced, diced, crumbled or minced ingredients are labeled and set around the work station in advance, while a scrap tray is ready to receive the peels and scraps that are the side products of cooking. The core requirement is that the station is kept clean throughout the cooking process, reflecting the high standards of a professional chef.

Mise en place is frequently cited by former students as one of their main takeaways from the boot camp experience.

Boot camp classes are open to anyone who is 18 years or older and there are also a variety of parent and kid classes for different ages. Wine and beverage classes are open only to participants 21 years and older.

There is literally a class for every skill or taste. Interested in Asian, Mexican, Mediterranean or regional Italian food—no problem! A vegetarian—there is a boot camp just for you. Not quite vegetarian, but leaning that way, try the new Plant Forward Boot Camp, a five-day, hands-on culinary exploration that emphasizes—but is not limited to—plant-based foods.

Seafood? There is a four-day boot camp under the direction of guest chef Christopher Muller, former culinary director at three Michelin-starred Le Bernardin in New York City. Other camps offer instruction in grilling, bistro cooking, crafting hors d’oeuvres, wine, baking and more.

The boot camps are often reviewed as being intense "fantasy culinary vacations," with participants reporting being "excruciatingly tired" by the end of the week with "battle scars" that include sore feet from commercial kitchen floors and the mental fatigue of mastering complex techniques.

Despite the rigors, there is an inevitable feeling of bonhomie and the satisfaction of mastering new skills. Brian Hart Hoffman, writing in Made from Scratch, said, “At CIA’s Boot Camp, each instructor sets the tone for the week, and Chef Hans Welker, our professor, was phenomenal. … Class was so much fun and I loved sharing every moment with our little gang of 12 … . I learned techniques that help me every day in my home kitchen.”

To learn more about boot camp offerings, go to the CIA website linked below.