Victoria Nicolaou of the St. Catharines Standard reported on NC’s launch of its one-year Professional Butchery Techniques Certificate, a program designed to elevate traditional meat cutting into a high-end culinary craft.
In the article, Craig Youdale, Dean of Culinary, Tourism and Beverage Studies, discusses the program’s goals.
“We believe strongly this is an area that really needs some help; there’s a huge market out there,” he said. “There’s an expansion of knowledge of butchery and butcher shops opening. Butchery is not a new thing, but we did feel that it was a bit of a dying art.”
The article emphasizes that the curriculum will pivot to the culinary side. Students will learn to stuff, marinate and transform meat into prepared foods, stocks and sauces. That element was brought in through recommendations from industry leaders to make sure graduates understand how the meat they prepare is used in the kitchen.
“We didn’t want it to be just learning to cut meat,” Youdale added. “We didn’t want it to be that rudimentary. We wanted students to follow the whole process from start to finish.”
Read the March 22 St. Catharines Standard article here.
