When you start at The CIA you are required to take B block, which is where you learn Introduction to Gastronomy, Product Knowledge, Food Safety, Mathematics and writing for 6 weeks. If you pass those classes you can proceed on to C block which is Seafood ID and Fabrication and Meat ID and Fabrication. Both classes last 7 intense days, 6 hours a day, so in 14 days you have learned a ton about meat and seafood. Yesterday I began Seafood ID and Fabrication. This class is scheduled to began at 5:30am, that is not to bad except you are required to be to class 30 minutes before hand to set up demos for the day, which then makes it 5am and I need plenty of time to get ready so I set my alarm for 4:00 am. I am not normally a morning person so the idea of getting up that early was not exactly appealing. Monday morning I was finally able to wear my chef whites, it was exciting putting on the perfectly pressed white jacket with my name embroidered on it with a green thread, the black and white checkered pants and my toque. The walk up to Roth Hall (the main building on campus) was pretty awesome, even though it was dark outside and freezing, I couldn't help but think about how many great, influential people did this exact same walk in the cold to a room that would be even colder and have a great fish smell that would definitely wake you up! I get to class and we start to work right when we set foot in the kitchen. Everyone thinks they understand what they have been instructed to do...except for the obvious confusion on every ones face because everything we are instructed to do is very vague. When we all ended up in the walk in together asking each other, what the heck we were supposed to be doing it was clear we needed to figure out what our TA (teacher assistant) had just told us fast or we would get in big trouble. Not to worry we figured out our jobs and did not get in trouble! Our chef came in promptly at 5:30am he did his little introduction and told us straight up that he was a "ball busting hard ass bastard" excuse the language but I thought it would be important for you to see exactly what I would be dealing with for the next 7 days. He told us that he has also been called "el diablo blanco" for those who don't know, that means the white devil, I was a little worried for the next few days to come. For the most part the first day was about getting to know the walk ins, the storage rooms, and how the kitchen should look for demos, class and when all cleaned at the end. We did get to learn about some species of fish though, specifically salmon, trout, bass, cod, flat and some miscellaneous fish. After the demos in the kitchen we went into a classroom for lecture around 8:30am so we had lecture for about two and a half hours where we learned everything about each fish such as; where it's from, it's activity level, what knife cut you are supposed to use on the fish, it's color, texture and a lot of other important little details. Class finally finished at 11:00am and I was exhausted but glad that I survived the first day! Our homework included watching a video about blue fin tuna, defining key terms and answering study questions.
--If you are interested in watching the video about the blue fin tuna I am posting the website so you may view it if you would like. It is an amazing fish that is sadly being over fished, but the video is very interesting and full of very informative facts. Enjoy.. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4423723n
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