FIU Hospitality School in China helps with 2008 Olympics
Linda Gassenheimer’s Food News and Views
Guests Dean Joseph West and Chef Michael Moran from the Hospitality and Management School at Florida International University
Linda Gassenheimer (LG)
Joseph Cooper (JC)
Fred Tasker (FT)
Dean Joseph West (JW)
Chef Michael Moran (MM)
LG: Florida International University [FIU] is on the hospitality global forefront with schools all over the world. We’re pleased to have Dean Joseph West and Chef Michael Moran from FIU as our guests today.
LG: Dean West, the FIU hospitality school is very international and expanding. Tell us about the school.
JW: The school has always been international; 35% of our enrollment is international. We have opened our campus in China and are about to graduate our first class there. We’ve had the school going in China since 2004.
LG: Does that mean you’re bringing American food to China?
JW: We are introducing western cooking techniques to the Chinese.
LG: Why do they need western cooking?
JW: There are a lot of western hotels and American chains opening in China. Our students walked into a western kitchen last August and by the first part of October we did a luncheon for top executives. We have 12 Miami students there studying with our Chinese students.
JC: In what language do you teach?
JW: Everything is in English. The Professors spent a year and a half in the US being trained.
LG: Are you the only foreign hospitality school there?
JW: Yes.
LG: That is quite amazing.
JW: Yes it is. This all started when we hired a Chinese professor in 2000. After we hired him he kept saying we needed to expand to China. I thought it was too far but he pushed me. We sponsored a seminar in Shanghai on Lodging for 3 days. Many General Managers of international hotels were there. When they decided they needed a western school they came to us and invited us there.
LG: What is your involvement with the Olympics?
JW: Our students are working at the Olympics. Our school of 1,000 will be in Beijing and elsewhere working various aspects of the Olympics. One faculty member is leaving in January to work with Aramark. We have both faculty and students involved.
LG: What is the food pavilion like?
JW: We have many different diets and requirements to tend to for the athletes. It’s very complicated.
LG: We’ve just had a caller who could not stay on the line, but she wanted to ask “why hotel and other hospitality jobs don’t pay well?”
MM: Starting out in the service industry, salaries are low. I tell students to work hard and then move up. If you find a place for yourself and work hard you can move up and make good money.
JW: We are an entrepreneurial industry. Many of our alumnae are doing very well. A typical general manager of a casual dining restaurant is 32 years old making $90,000 a year, plus bonus.
JC: What effect has TV and The Food Network had?
MM: It has created tremendous interest.
JC: How did you get your start?
JW: I got my start in a Chinese restaurant in Miami as a kitchen boy. I worked after school and peeled onions. My parents were in the business. I left the industry when I was 42.
LG: We receive a lot of comments about the poor quality of service in South Florida. What can we do about that and what’s being done about that already?
MM: Service is an art. It’s a very fragmented industry and the perception of what service is from the standpoint of the owner is different in different places. The bottom line is that it’s the manager’s job to create a culture to connect to the customer and meet their needs. Just be nice to the customer; sometimes we don’t see that.
JW: Look at the good service you do get in good hotels and fine restaurants. As you industrialize the service at places offering quick food loses the interpersonal touch. If you want to pay nothing for your food you can’t expect money to be there for service training.
MM: Yes, but it’s also corporate culture. Denny’s always has excellent service.
JW: Denny’s has that as its corporate culture. It starts with the manager.
MM: I tell my students 90% of the job is to spend a lot of time with staff practicing and rehearsing.
LG: With our transient culture you must be training staff all the time.
JW: Everyone in the restaurant business is going somewhere else. There’s never a situation where someone is going to stay put.
MM: In Europe salary and tipping is different. That makes it more of a legitimate profession and less transient.
LG: Chef, FIU is not just a cooking school. Tell us more about the other things you do.
MM: We are a management school. Culinary Arts focus on food and preparation. We’re focused more on management of service, ambience and how to turn a profit in a difficult field. Cooking is just one part of the equation. It’s a 4 year degree and students get either a Bachelors or Masters Degree in Hospitality.
LG: What are the ages of your students?
MM: Our students are from all different backgrounds. We have students in their 40s making career changes to people just out of high school.
Caller: My first question is, I understand in China that you’re teaching western cooking methods. That means the Chinese are picking up our unhealthy eating habits. Is that really a good thing?
JW: I believe in free choice. If you want McDonalds, that is your choice. We train our students in correct preparation of food. Our 45 graduating students have already been hired by hotels in China. While I would agree that not all Western cuisine is healthy, not all Chinese cuisine is healthy either.
[break]
LG: It’s “Dinner In Minutes” time. If you keep these basic ingredients on hand you can whip up this dinner without a trip to the supermarket.
JC: This is more spicy than usual.
LG: It has a nice kick. Almost all shrimp we buy here was or is frozen. So I just ask for the frozen shrimp to save money. First defrost it in a bowl of cold running water in the sink. Then cook the shrimp and salsa together and add pine nuts at the end. You can keep pine nuts in the freezer. Don’t overcook the shrimp because they keep cooking even after being taken off of the heat. Next cook the brown rice, 1/2 cup for 2 people. Finally add frozen or fresh vegetables and you’re done. Click on the home page columns icon for a link to the recipe.
LG: Chef Moran you have a lunch room open to the public, correct?
MM: Every two weeks starting at the end of January we invite people to come in and our students are evaluated on how they do. It’s a nominal fee of $15 for lunch. 305-919-4500 or www.hospitality.fiu.edu
JW: Tickets for the South Beach Food and Wine Festival are still available. We’re building an exhibition kitchen with the money we make from the Festival.
LG: We’ve had an interesting and tasty week. Thanks for joining us.
Fred Tasker’s Wine suggestion:
If you’re lucky enough to attend next year’s Olympics in China, you might be surprised to learn that you’ll be able to belly up to the bar in some hotel there and order a glass of Chinese Champagne. If your dinner includes something like cashew chicken, you can have it with a Chinese Riesling. If you have Peking duck, you can drink a Chinese pinot noir.
Now that’s what I call a Great Leap Forward.
The average Chinese still drinks only about two glasses of wine a year. But they’ve started a wine industry, and it’s growing at 15 percent a year, and, the way the world works today, they will probably put California and France out of business within 10 or 15 years. Just like General Motors.
There was an article in The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, that quoted an old Chinese saying: “If there’s no alcohol, it can’t be called a banquet because alcohol makes for a cheerful atmosphere.”
I’ve tried some of these wines, and they’re pretty good considering how young the industry is. Nothing very complex, but OK.
It stands to reason the Chinese can make wine. Grapes grow at certain latitudes, and if you take a globe, put your finger on Bordeaux or Burgundy and spin the globe, you’ll go right through part of China. They just needed the money, equipment and expertise.
The wines I’ve tried are from a new winery called Dragon Seal, at the foot of the Great Wall, outside Beijing. French winemaker Jerome Sabate is using French vines, state-of-the-art equipment and French and American oak barrels.
They sell here for $11 a bottle. To find out where you can buy them, send an e-mail to Alan Kratish of Halby Marketing at grapewiz@aol.