How Can I Become A Caterer?

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The desire to learn how to create or produce the cuisine that one has grown to love, may arrive early in a child’s life; at least it did for me. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen and waiting for a serving of cornbread or a sample cake to come out of the oven was always a thrill. No matter how late the hours were; a taste of goodness was always in order. You would think that this is when the career of catering came into being for me, but it was not. I will fast forward from the age of three to the age of maybe fifteen. During one of the holidays, I was asked to prepare the potato salad. The result was so good that my mother complimented me. She thought it was better than her recipe. In my mind the cooks were already established in our family and to enter the arena was to move them out of their passion. I told my Lord that each meal would remain prepared mostly by the seniors in the family, because as a child growing up, it seemed that to take over the kitchen would mean that they were not needed anymore and God might take them from me. Well, this proved to be the best move in my quest to serve delicious meals to others.

            Each time I visited a friend, family member, or a function, there was a spread of food. I would ask for a taste, the recipe and memorize what element of the item that I wanted to repeat or advance. This quest for catering started in 1962 and continued until I enrolled in the Penn Foster Catering School in 2010. I now have a two-year catering diploma and during the winter of 2011 the Culinary Institute of America accepted my application to be admitted to their school. The choice to cancel the admittance date was a tough decision but I knew that kosher meals were not

 

an exclusive program through their school and my culinary tastes were adapting towards only the kosher meats. To become a chef in the CIA’s program would entail tasting pork, seabed dwelling fish, cheese mixed with beef, to name a few items, and this would not be considered acceptable fare for a Judeo-Christian. This is how I decided to take cuisine serious enough to major in the emphasis area. The following paragraphs will give a more detailed trail of how to accomplish the goal.

Catering as a Career:

            One should first love the art of cooking and maintain the humility that is needed to serve the public when becoming a caterer. The community of family and or friends will assist the novice in learning the special techniques, spices, seasonings, measurements for dry and wet ingredients to name a few specifics. Cultural specialties that we tend to call soul food can be included in a program but I have started my own online soul food cooking school. I do not believe that I should hurriedly open up our family soul food cooking school site just yet. Rushing through this level of culinaria is not advised for an adult and definitely not for a student.

            A slow pace and possibly during the summer months while children are out of school they can volunteer to participate in a bake sale or donate cookies to a charitable organization. Behind the scenes is best – in the beginning, because you do not want to employ yourself with a company until you feel confident around the kitchen. The mistakes of a cake cracking down the center of a cake can and will happen; but do not give up. One will learn how to mend those indiscretions so that they do not waste ingredients, money and time. Now the excitement begins.

           

 Once the novice reaches the age of employment, a good way to learn the hardware that chefs and sous chefs use, is to apply at the local seafood restaurant of your choice during your summer school break. This experience will teach you some of the hidden truths about the industry. One of these truths is anger. Chefs are very impatient in most cases and timeliness is the second most important asset to have in an industrial size kitchen. The first important asset is to be a multi-tasker. Believe it or not, chefs love to change their mind periodically. A client may adjust their party size without much notice; so the cuisine that is being produced, must be exclusively about the client – not about the novice and their training – or the chef and their anger. I would advise the student caterer to stay with an employer for about six months to a year in one location. Then they should gracefully move on to work for a steakhouse restaurant. This experience should last for about six months to a year as well. Between the seafood and beef fabricating (cutting the prime cuts into smaller portions of the food source), an employee will have access to learning how to build a salad bar, dessert preparations, baking dinner rolls, preparing beverages, setting a table, and hosting a small party on site. The art of becoming a caterer has already begun. The time spent over the summer school break can be lucrative for a teenager because there are always tips in the culinary business and you can save your money to invest in culinary apparel.

Formal Education:

            A two-year formal educational program for the industry of catering is about all one would need after k-12 homeschool, public or private school. The local community colleges are filled with openings in their programs. Textbook knowledge can be helpful but without the natural abilities or God-given talent it could prove to be a waste of time. There are programs to enhance the basic tenets of culinaria that one would find in a four-year university. They are willing and able to teach the following courses which I have retrieved from the Art Institutes website (http://ai.artschools.com/artinstitutes/p/culinary-arts.php):

• Culinary techniques

• Classical techniques

• Sanitation & safety

• Baking and pastry techniques

• Management by menu

• Nutrition

• Garde manger

• Foodservice technology

• Food & beverage operations management

• Planning & controlling costs

• World cuisine

• American regional cuisine

• Classical European cuisine

• Asian cuisine

• Latin cuisine

• A la carte kitchen

• Art culinaire

Now usually, a person who is enthused with becoming a chef would invest the time in a four-

year program. On the contrary, a caterer could use those two extra years past there associates

level degree, to actually work in the industry. Hands-on experience is often better than

textbook learning.

Marketing:

            Locating the most cost efficient source for test-marketing your product is a good idea. For instance, inviting your community of family and friends over for a picnic while featuring all of your best recipes coupled with a paper survey in Likert-Scale form; would start a community buzz about the latest asset to the community – and that asset is you. Word of mouth marketing

and business card circulating is usually successful and they can keep the interest growing until a formal newspaper article and lead story is released. Once the caterer is a household name they should register with their local chamber of commerce who will in turn act as a form of advertisement for your company.

Teaching the Knowledge and Passion of Catering to Students via the Concept Map:

            This information once attained in the form of education by trial-and –error or formal education is easy to convey to yet another novice – even while you are in the process of learning yourself. Visual aids work well when I am learning so including videos, music, and incense for an ambiance sets the scene for learning. For example when you learn how to measure dry or wet ingredients you will never have to study that again, but if you are watching a video about the two types of ingredients while smelling the incense of vanilla – the mind paints a greater picture than the textbook can. Also, it would be easier to train a new student while you are actively catering a low budget event and ask them to prepare and label the seasoning bowls and the flavor cups. However, I would not venture off to help anyone as a caterer without trademarking my own creations and getting the best legal advice first. One should use wisdom in this field just like you would expect an accountant or doctor to use and protect your interest at all costs. The concept map is a graphical and visual tool that displays the big ideas and the brainstorming of the parties that created it in a nice neat format with clear links of relationship to each concept. A student can systematize relevant prior knowledge on the original version while another student can receive an invitation to document their input on the map also. Editing the original map is not difficult, inserting concepts that personally detail their input with for example photographs of cuisine, and

sharing the information with their catering team is almost effortless. The information that is provided via lectures, on-the-job training, and classroom discussions on difficult recipes for catering events, can be effective through the use of a collaborative assignment. Students helping each other to soar past the stage of proficiency should be the goal in a good catering program because most clients need a team of caterers not just the chef. Learning with a good understanding is demonstrated in an accredited catering program curriculum. The Chefs and experienced caterers will enforce the need for clarity; whether it is the unit on preparing: appetizers, receptions, banquets for conventions or a seven course meal. Culinary students have to prepare the meals, write their menu plans for those courses, and give excellent presentation. Although it is not stated at each juncture the student is always being assessed. In the constructing of the concept map a culinarian with the interest in perfecting a recipe or an event the best type of understanding to use is what is relevant to the student. In my concept map I looked into the scientific strategic approach of understanding. I used my prior knowledge during my youth and maturity to explain how one could follow this career path. I hope that it was conveyed to my viewer just how important this career is to me.

            While pursuing this field a student should learn how to interact with the community of cooks and food distributors. Purchasing goods from the local markets may become taxing. Personality clashes may occur within the various entities, within a team or as a subordinate to the chef or their sous chef; so humility as I stated earlier is an asset. The tacit knowledge of a novice cook and the elicit knowledge of the caterer can bridge the community gaps of the ghetto to the suburbs. Prior knowledge comes in to view as a caterer draws on how to display a recipe from their African village, for example, while in the White House, on a catering team. A

misconception about the field of catering is that the growth financially will not allow the creativity of the impoverished environment to insert humility. The truth behind the emphasis is that it started from humility. All nationalities used the earth to grow grains and vegetables as well as fishing in wild oceans and lakes or hunting the buffalo. Hopefully our globe of residents will return to the humble community of sharing meals from the novice and experienced hands of the caterer.