One of the reasons I became interested in food was learning the origin stories of food and how their unique names came to be. Not to my surprise, that is also the interest of many of my instructors. Often times, they’ll give us, not really bonus assignments, but extra work because “Why not?” otherwise, if something looks interesting or cool I’ll just look it up myself. That is exactly what I did with the hilariously titled “Hoppin’ John” recipe we made in Veg and Far during my first block.

Hoppin John is a rice and bean dish that is traditionally served at New Year’s dinner. When I did my little bit of research, I found that this is a southern dish that was part of low country cuisine. It is made up of black eyed peas, spiced meat, and rice and served with collard greens and corn bread.

The first written recipe for Hoppin’ John appeared in The California Housewife in 1847. No one is really sure how the name came to be, but there are four stories that are primarily believed:

1. It was tradition for children to be called to the meal on New Year’s and “hop” around the table before sitting down to eat.
2. Once, a man named John came “a hoppin” to dinner when his wife made the dish. (This one is more of a long shot).
3. A southern tradition would be to invite guests to dinner by saying “Hop in, John!” (again, another long shot)
4. (The most widely beleived) The dish dates back as far as 1841, when, as per tradition, a crippled man would hawk it into the streets. The man’s nickname, of course, was Hoppin’ John.

A New Year’s tradition for this dish is much like the French King Cake tradition. A shiny coin is buried somewhere in the dish, then served. The lucky person to find the coin in their dish is assured good luck for the coming year. For maximum luck, the first thing to be eaten on New Year’s Day is Hoppin’ John.

The origin of food is always interesting to research. You can find anywhere from some of the blandest stories, like that of scones (they were created as something for Queen Elizabeth I to enjoy with her tea), to the strangest ones, like Hoppin’ John. I hope I added to your food knowledge just a little bit.

Stradley, L. (2004). Hoppin’ John recipe and history: Black-eyed peas and rice recipe. Retrieved from http://www.whatscookingamerica.net/History/HoppinJohn.htm

Do you know what “mise en place” is? Yes? How about “béchamel sauce”? Yes? Tell me about anthocyanin. Nothing? Well, I guess you didn’t learn everything in tech. Anthocyanin is the color pigment in food that makes it appear red or purple. This culinary term is more important than one would realize, but that’s the kind of thing we learn here at IUP Culinary.

Students and chef in Farinaceous Products and Vegetable Cookery class

Personally, I went to a tech school. I stayed for two years and finished the program with straight A’s and never missed one class. Even I wondered what else I had to learn by going to culinary school. I was lucky enough to have a dad who knew better than I and sent me to IUP to gain a degree.

I am two weeks in at IUP and I have already learned more than my two years at tech school. I’ve learned such wonderful things like what kind of flesh eating virus you can get from eating improperly cooked meats. It’s almost enough to scare you from ever eating in a restaurant again. While going to a tech school definitely gave me a leg up on some of the non-tech kids here, in the long run it doesn’t really matter. Everyone learns the same thing at the same time, just some people look like know it all’s. My pastry skills that I learned at tech aren’t doing me very well in my Farinaceous Products and Vegetable Cookery class and they won’t until I get into the Baking and Pastry class, which is about 2 months away.

My roommate Angela (also a former tech student) said when I asked her what she thought about college, “It’s the best thing you can do. You can gain more knowledge. You get a refresher from things you forgot from tech, and you learn more than you thought you could. I think it’s just awesome.” You may think you learned everything there is to learn at tech, but I actually feel like I learned nothing compared to what I’m learning now. My tech school was focused on feeding the numerous elderly people and faculty members that entered our dining room. This made it difficult for us to have any theory days, which don’t sound like the most interesting thing in the world, but it’s almost as important as the kitchen experience. You need to be able to know what you’re doing, before you’re able to execute it in the kitchen. It’s like reading a recipe before you start cooking.

If you’re at the point in your life where you are looking for colleges, you need to realize that not many resorts hand out head chef jobs to a kid who just came out of their high school tech class where they spent half of the day learning about, the ever so important, polynomial functions then spent the next two hours in tech learning the proper way to measure flour. Any self-respecting resort would much rather hire the culinary student who spends 5 hours every day in the kitchen learning how to perfectly poach an egg and outstandingly arrange a plate. I don’t mean to sound like I’m promoting IUP Culinary, any culinary school will give you the proper knowledge to go into the workforce, but I personally feel IUP was the best choice I could have made.

In high school, my day began with 4 hours of average high school classes (English, Trigonometry, some kind of science, and whatever extracurricular I decided to take). After waking up from those classes, I went to my tech school for two hours where every day I was given three or more recipes and was told to complete them before the final bell. These recipes were usually cookies I’ve made a thousand times before or the dinner roll recipe I still have memorized to this day. It taught me how to memorize a recipe and how to multitask, but it also taught me to be a robot and always do exactly what I was told. That really is a good chef’s kryptonite: only ever doing what you’re told. Remember the sarcastic saying, “If you read it on the internet it must be true.” The same thing applies to cooking. If you read it in a recipe, it must be the best way to do it. Right? The job of a chef is to find the best way to do something even if the recipe doesn’t say so.

My chef (Chef Rupert) said something the first day of class that will stay with me forever. It is the reason I am here. She said “Anyone can cook. Anyone can follow a recipe and do what they’re told. If you want to be a chef, you have to think and be creative. I’m teaching you how to think like a chef because that’s why you’re here. You want to become a chef. If you wanted to become a cook, you should have ended at tech school.” Personally, I’m not content with being average. I’m not content with being just a cook. If you are, that’s fine, but I can’t imagine too many people are okay with being just another face in the crowd. We are here to become chefs, not cooks.

“Mise en place” means “everything in place” in French or “get every possible ingredient and piece of equipment ready before the cooking begins” in culinary terms. It means organization, but it’s not just a culinary term. It’s a life term. The most important thing learned in culinary school is mise en place. Organization and putting everything in place before things get out of hand and being prepared. College is part of mise en place for your adult life. College is getting you prepared to enter the workforce as the strongest culinarian you can be, so when you start cooking, everything is ready for you. It’s on your mise en place tray. Every spice, every ingredient, every tool is waiting to be used and added into the dish called your life. And when you have that degree in your hands, it’s time to start cooking and plating the most beautiful dish you can.