E-Mail This Article to a Friend Food for thought Just a few courses at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts can dish up a smorgasbord of real-world benefits BY RUTH TOBIAS

AS A YOUNG gastronomic entity,y," writes culinary historian and journalist Leslie Brenner in her 1999 book American Appetite: The Coming of Age of a Cuisine, "the United States has been mired in a stage of discovery." Although the more neutral "inhabiting" could easily substitute for Brenner’s phrase "mired in," the point remains the same. In the post–Cold War era, our entrenched, heartland-based tendencies toward Puritanism and xenophobia have finally begun to meet their match in a multiculturalist, yuppie urbanity whereby, in Brenner’s words, "knowledge about food has come to imply the height of culture and sophistication."

No wonder Americans are putting chefs on such pedestals these days (especially here in the northeast, the region of the country that, according to the National Restaurant Association, or NRA, registers the highest expenditures per capita per annum on dining out). No wonder they’re hoisting themselves up there as well, flocking to culinary schools like never before: since the 1970s, enrollment has increased steadily nationwide; Johnson & Wales, for one, began with under 150 students and now boasts more than 5000, while the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) has grown from 50 to 2300 students. Meanwhile, the NRA reports that 12.2 million Americans are currently employed in the restaurant industry — a figure expected to rise to 13.5 million by 2014. What do they do when they realize the glitz and glamour of the restaurant business is mostly a front-of-the-house illusion, not a back-of-the-house reality; when the moments of glory prove rare among countless hours of exhausting, exacting, often thankless work? Surprisingly, many of them buckle down and bear it, because they’ve fallen in love with the creativity, the energy, the camaraderie. This is their story, particularly as it unfolds at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, whose own story encapsulates the industry’s growth trajectory.

In 30 years the CSCA has gone from a one-woman operation, with founder Roberta Dowling leading cooking demonstrations in her home kitchen — as she puts it, "I shopped, I organized, I wrote the lectures, I did it all" — to a three-story warren of kitchens and offices in Porter Square that last year alone ushered through approximately 2600 students. Not all enroll in the 37-week Professional Chef’s Program (PCP); some opt for the 15-week Culinary Certificate Program (CCP), while still others sign up for such Continuing Education classes as "Noodles — Asia’s Common Thread" and "Nuts About Nuts." The interest is such that a satellite campus is now in the works. "We were approached by the city of Lawrence to open up a school there," Dowling says. "It’s a city in transition — it’s already getting all kinds of federal moneys and grants. So the mayor came and said that he wanted us to consider it. I saw a vision of what would happen. We got involved with the city planners, we got involved with architects, and it’s in the making.

"I never say no, you know. People ask me, ‘Don’t you get tired?’ This is not work, trust me. This is my modus operandi."

IT MAY NOT seem like work to her, but cooking school sure meant blood, sweat, and tears to me: in the interest of full disclosure, I’m a CSCA graduate, class of ’02. Not, mind you, a particularly distinguished one. Then again, I purposely entered the school’s Professional Culinary Program as a fledgling food writer rather than a would-be chef. And for that matter, the goals of my fellow students were and continue to be myriad: though the majority are positioning themselves to become the next Todd English or Lydia Shire, others dream of opening neighborhood bakeries, catering companies, or bed-and-breakfasts; still others hope to augment their backgrounds as nutritionists, party planners, or tour guides; and some have no professional intentions whatsoever, just an abiding love of the craft. Peek through the school’s Mass Ave windows sometime, and you’re sure to be struck by the age range of the baseball-capped, apron-clad hustlers-and-bustlers inside, going about their business with whisks and oven mitts. Eavesdrop on one of their after-class gab sessions over drinks at Christopher’s or Spirit, and you’ll hear a wealth of accents — native-Russian rumbling, Deep South drawling, North Shore patois. Talk about a melting pot: perhaps because it involves a universal human need — and despite the machismo it may nurture, as Anthony Bourdain shows in Kitchen Confidential — the culinary world comes to rest on a remarkably level, inclusive playing field.

Consider instructor Stephan Viau’s "Food Basics" class as I revisited it recently. Eight weeks into the program, the subject is meat cookery, with the day’s topic being lamb. By the time I arrive, around 2 p.m., the morning’s lecture has long since ended and the students — a dozen or so, as is typical — are putting the finishing touches on the menu they’ve received as part of the lesson plan. Some cook alone, others with partners; they’re doing not only lamb-based appetizers and entrées, but also side salads and desserts, all scheduled for completion by three o’clock. My arrival causes only minor disruption before the cooks are back to business and its accompanying banter, but even the briefest of introductions reveals the diversity of their backgrounds — and futures, for that matter.

There’s Brazilian-born Maria Sieh, a half-Spanish, half-Cuban licensed speech therapist and the wife of a Chinese MIT student. Sieh rhapsodizes, "I always wanted to cook, always, always. I love touching food, looking at food" — though she admits laughingly, "I don’t really know how I want to work with it yet. Maybe as a party planner, doing small dinner parties for rich people." By contrast, Annie Marotta, a 2001 Smith College graduate, confesses, "I was doing grilled cheese and French fries until I was 20." It was only when she began accompanying a friend, who happened to be related to chef Barbara Lynch, to No. 9 Park that she began to take an interest in food — an interest which led to the matter-of-fact revelation that "cooking school would be way cheaper and more interesting than law school."

There’s Carolyn MacDonald, who taught in the Braintree middle-school system until funding cuts eliminated consumer science from the curriculum; now she’s setting her sights on positions at the vocational level. And Rob Ocko, a married father and ex-banker who dreams of opening his own bistro in the ’burbs. And more, including Tiffany Gates and Kenneth Wheeler — the former a twentysomething who was studying history and working as a bartender in London when she realized she’d fallen "in love with the pace" of the good life (and consequently "never wanted to teach"), the other a fortysomething with a degree in international affairs, who begins his answer to the question of how he got here with, "My probation officer said ... no, I’m just kidding."