Culinary Training Vs. Pastry Training

[takemyheartx]

Hi, I'm new to this forum, and I'm looking for some opinions.

I'm extremely interested in going to culinary school, particularly to the FCI in new york. I love all cooking in general, but initially I was planning on going for pastry arts.

I'm starting to contemplate whether or not I should just go for classic culinary instead. I know career wise it would probably be smarter for me to do culinary because there are more jobs for chefs than pastry chefs.

What would you recommend? Any tips for choosing between the two? Are there certain people more suited for one or the other?

The FCI also offers amateur classes, so I could always go for a career course in one thing and take an amatuer class in the other.

[Daniel Manda]

Hie,
In your post you requested achoice between two burning careers and that is: Culinary Training or Pastry Training.I would suggest that you go for the Culinay Training than Pastry Training.I Suppose Pastry Training may be incorporated in the Culinary Training and that if qualified you may learn some aspects of either trainings whilst working because the two go hand in hand.

Regards,
Daniel Manda.

[bonbini]

I'd say go for the one you'd enjoy doing it.

[Marlene]

I feel the exact same way right now. My long term goal is to open my own cake business, but which path do I take to get there? Culinary Management which focuses primarily on culinary art's, not pastry/baking or take a pastry/baking class with some seperate management classes. Ohhhh the confusion!!! Well I hope you find your path.

[bonbini]

in baking & pastry program that i attend, human resource and cost control are in the curriculum...

[kazooxcore434]

Im a pastry major at Johnson and Wales and i love it, i like to cook but i enjoy pastry more because its definitly more art based, culinary has presentation, but theres so much more you can do with pastry mediums such as marzipan and sugar. I would pick the major that interests you more, however there are definitly people who have been in my classes who have absolutely no artistic ability and they struggle a lot.

[ShoeMaker]

Originally Posted by kazooxcore434

....i enjoy pastry more because its definitly more art based, culinary has presentation, but theres so much more you can do with pastry mediums such as marzipan and sugar.

Agree and disagree, to a degree Pastry finishing (as well as culinary presentation) is very artsy, but the actual baking before the finished pastry is more "science" based than cooking the food is. There've been discussions on this topic before. "Science rules !!!" to quote Bill Nye the Science Guy's show

With that said, if pursuing the pastry chef dream is what you want, then go for it. It's a lot of work, but anything within the industry is, no matter what the focus. I prefer doing what I like and liking what I do, as opposed to sucking it up and being a corporate shill just for a paycheck, even if it means I make a lot less $$$. Follow your heart and your dreams, as you only live once !!!

[kazooxcore434]

True it is very science based, we have to take a 3 month class called Baking Formula Tech, which goes in depth into the science of baking.

[adamm]

do what you love, i love to cook, i dont mind to bake but it get frustrating to me. The school i went too had a baking and pastry for two semesters after the three semesters of regular culinary and i was debating for a while weather to go into it or not, i decided not. theres definitly advantages and disadvantages to both if you choose culinary or not. I know some schools have a pretty extensive baking program(mine did) for just culinary, and others dont have any baking program. Just make sure you check out the schools you want to go to in depth and check more than one out before you make your perminent choice.