Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 Hi All, Looking for honest responses here (please no flames!) OK - so I'm looking into going back to school to get a Culinary Arts degree. However, I can't find a single school that offers purely vegetarian cooking. Even the " Natural Cooking " school has a mandatory class in preparing poultry. So, the Natural Cooking School would make me cook chicken and a more prestigious, recognized school would make me cook beef and poultry. (Although the Meat Prep professor is a veggie... wierd). Do I swallow my vegetarian mentality and enroll in the better school even though it uses meat? Incidentily, the meat course does conduct lessons on environmental issues (presumably so the Five Star rest. doesn't serve crap steak) and on ethical issues surrounding meat consumption. What thoughts? Thanks! -K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 I remember a similar question in the group over the past year or so, and it got a good amount of responses. Search the archive for them. Good luck. If all else fails, hold your nose and do it, and then become the best veggie chef you can be. Dave Jigilou Snicklefitz [jigilou] Thursday, June 19, 2003 1:28 PM Ethical Education Question >>...Even the " Natural Cooking " school has a mandatory class in preparing poultry...<< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 Sympathies. We are/were all taught a lot that we disapprove/d of - and the only way to get even, say, a BA (which usually offered a lot of options even way back when) was to take, say, Prof A's hideous course in Marxism or was it Capitalism, or Prof B's course in religious history (or so it seemed) or heathenism (or so it seemed). But rarely have I run across a dilemma such as yours ;=( They used to tell us Get through it now and when you've graduated you can do as you please - but no one asked us to handle me*t, except in biology class ;=(. Of course, we were lucky we weren't doing pre-med . . . Sigghhhh. Surely there *must* be a veggie cooking school out there that *doesn't* do the meat thing as a matter of (excuse the pun) course??? Best, Pat -- SANTBROWN townhounds/ http://www.angelfire.com/art/pendragon/ ---------- * " He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. " - Immanuel Kant * " I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. " - Abraham Lincoln * " There are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it. " - Franz Fanon ---------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 Do I > swallow my vegetarian mentality and enroll in the better school even > though it uses meat? No way!!! When I was in high school I found myself working at a pizza place and fixing pizzas and subs with meat. I had only been a vegetarian a couple of years, but found myself at odds with the job. It didn't feel right and it bothered me a lot. I think you should talk to the school and see if they can make any exceptions to the class or find another school! No good culinary school should make anyone cook meat who is ethically opposed to it. You might find a vegetarian cooking school in another part of the country, but you'd have to be willing to travel. OR, what if you took all the classes you wanted to except that poultry class and didn't get a degree? Is that an option? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 Jigilou Snicklefitz <jigilou wrote:Hi All, Looking for honest responses here (please no flames!) OK - so I'm looking into going back to school to get a Culinary Arts degree. However, I can't find a single school that offers purely vegetarian cooking. Even the " Natural Cooking " school has a mandatory class in preparing poultry. So, the Natural Cooking School would make me cook chicken and a more prestigious, recognized school would make me cook beef and poultry. (Although the Meat Prep professor is a veggie... wierd). Do I swallow my vegetarian mentality and enroll in the better school even though it uses meat? Incidentily, the meat course does conduct lessons on environmental issues (presumably so the Five Star rest. doesn't serve crap steak) and on ethical issues surrounding meat consumption. What thoughts? Thanks! -K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 yeah, i've heard this before, that no matter where you go, in order to learn veggie cooking you have to cook meat first. of course this is a personal choice you have to make. I don't think there's any ethical violation if you're not actually cooking it for yourself. like if you're going to feed it to people at your culinary school who would probably go home and eat a burger anyhow, then you're not really contributing to the slaughter of animals, you know. it's just like, i work at a restaurant that serves meat. but i don't eat it. so i don't really feel i've violated my ethical values, although it does bother me that my income is coming largely from the sale of meat.. but well, it's the only place that would hire a bum like me. on the plus side, once you get your cooking degree you'll be able to make great vegetarian dishes for lots of people and maybe even encourage them to go veggie. , " Jigilou Snicklefitz " <jigilou> wrote: > Hi All, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 maybe you could try telling them you're Hindu , buddhist, etc. and that it's against your religion to cook meat. they might let you get out of it if they fear a discrimination law suit. A coworker of mine said he used to be a vegetarian for like 3 years, ,then he got a job as a cook at a steakhouse, and the boss insisted that he had to taste the steak before they sent it out to ensure quality. he told them he was veggie and they said " what? a vegetarian working at a steakhouse that's ridiculous! " apparently he really needed this job cause he started eating meat again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 I say go for it. Probably the reason they include these meals is because if someone wants to be a chef they most likely either want to work at an existing restaurant or start thier own. So therefore you would need to know those things, unless you start your own and serve only veggie dishes. A lot of people in the Culinary world see cooking as art and feel that they should at least touch on all points of the art... meaning meat. You will learn so much by doing this and then when you finish you'll never have to cook the meats. Some instructors may even allow you if you talk to them about how strongly you feel, to use tofu (or whatever) instead of the meat. (Its the whole not disecting a frog thing). You may have to take a couple points of the grade but who knows... teacher may understand this and probably already dealt with students who feel the same as you do. For food artists its not really what food you use, its about the taste, flavors, etc etc... Anyway just my two cents. Other K Jigilou Snicklefitz <jigilou wrote: Hi All, Looking for honest responses here (please no flames!) OK - so I'm looking into going back to school to get a Culinary Arts degree. However, I can't find a single school that offers purely vegetarian cooking. Even the " Natural Cooking " school has a mandatory class in preparing poultry. So, the Natural Cooking School would make me cook chicken and a more prestigious, recognized school would make me cook beef and poultry. (Although the Meat Prep professor is a veggie... wierd). Do I swallow my vegetarian mentality and enroll in the better school even though it uses meat? Incidentily, the meat course does conduct lessons on environmental issues (presumably so the Five Star rest. doesn't serve crap steak) and on ethical issues surrounding meat consumption. What thoughts? Thanks! -K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted June 19, 2003 Report Share Posted June 19, 2003 Very good point. One thing that makes veggie food more palatable for non veggies is how close you can make it taste like the meat dishes they recognize. Knowing which spices bring a particular flavor to your dishes is a skill worth knowing. Dave K [wantstolearn1] Thursday, June 19, 2003 6:11 PM Re: Ethical Education Question A lot of people in the Culinary world see cooking as art and feel that they should at least touch on all points of the art... meaning meat. You will learn so much by doing this and then when you finish you'll never have to cook the meats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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