The reality TV show “Top Chef” isn’t the only way to become a master chef. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a major in culinology can be the ticket to culinary fame.
The culinary arts, which is basically the art of cooking, becomes culinology when they are blended with food science.
“It’s designed for students who can work with both sides of their brain,” said Marilyn Schnepf, department chair of nutrition and health sciences, “because they need to understand food science and also the culinary art.”
The culinology program was instituted in 2002, she said, and there are currently about 38 students with the major.
“UNL was the first in the nation to introduce the culinology major,” said Fayrene Hamouz, associate professor of nutrition and health sciences, “and we had the first national graduate.”
The thing that deters many students from a culinology major, Schnepf said, is the fact that it requires so much science, including two years of chemistry.
Despite this, many people in the cooking business are coming back to school to get a degree in culinology.
“Right now, I would say about 20 percent of people in the program were in restaurants, cooking, and have come back to school to move into the food processing industry,” Hamouz said.
According to UNL’s Nutrition and Health Sciences Web site, the main career path for a culinologist is research chef.
“The Research Chef,” the program definition reads, “is first a chef, a food-focused individual, dedicated to producing the finest possible combination of ingredients to achieve palate-pleasing results whether personally preparing the product for a customer they know or one they will never know.”
The main career paths, Hamouz said, are in “two major industries: food processing, where they would be designing, testing new food, and also in corporate restaurant chains, where they would be developing the next product for an Applebee’s or Granite City – something corporate.”
Among UNL culinology alumni, Hamouz said, one is the corporate research chef for Wells’ Blue Bunny, another is in research and development at General Mills, and five or six are in research and development at ConAgra Foods.
The culinary field, Hamouz said, is indeed moving from cooking schools to universities.
“The Research Chefs Association was started by a group of chefs who had experience in the culinary arts as well as food science,” she said, and this kind of degree can only be obtained at a university.
JACEGATZEMEYER@DAILYNEBRASKAN.COM
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