Sabor Vegan Culinary Academy Mallorca : First Week of School

In my search of expertise in a variety of culinary fields I found a school in Spain that actually teaches “Veganism”. How cool is that? While on heavy charter season when my only quiet time away from the yacht is my provisioning time. I quickly looked up the Academy’s content. Flashes of whatever I was looking for at the moment come to my mind: Sabor (Flavor), use of ingredients that not only are good for you but that are delicious , future of modern cuisine, use of ingredients that are traditionally unknown like algies and fungai and training in the use of Modernist Cuisine techniques, advance flavoring techniques and instruments like Molecular Gastronomy. 10 minute facebook call with Manuel Lynch (owner and director of Sabor Vegan Culinary Academy) and bam Im sold.

 

A couple of weeks later I’m sitting in class. Reading about nutritional values of nuts, omami, Caisen, Neu5GC, Glycemic index. Making gelified spheres and it didn’t take long to realize that I am immerse in not just a cooking class but my entire way of doing things and life style might be about to change entirely.

 

So. I decided to blog about my transition and constant discovery of interesting facts that I had no idea about. For example, the consumption of one egg a week is as bad as smoking 2 packs of cigarettes…(will probably end up blogging about interesting facts soon just because they are so interesting).

 

The first homework included writing an overview of myself and to describe why I wanted to pursue becoming a vegan chef and what the outside world should know about me. Wow. Ok. This is very complex and I decided to leave it blank until I had time to elaborate a bit.

 

I hope to be able to complete that homework for schooling purposes sometime soon but I feel this is clearly the start of a journey that at this moment I don’t know where it is going to take me to. All I know is that I don’t have plans to open a vegan restaurant, I don’t have plans to teach veganism, I am not here for religious reasons and I can go on. What are my reasons for being here then? What am I in search of?

 

Evidently I am here to learn. I am looking for knowledge and I am an open notebook full of pages to be filled. I want to be able to cater to my vegan guest/clients and serve them a delish vegan dish that is not only highly nutritious but delicious at the same time. I have tried numerous vegan recipes in the past but they have been a hit or miss. Sometimes they are amazing. Sometimes I have to mark them down so I never attempt again. Even though I’ve noticed that my vegans ( I will refer as vegans to gust, clients or crew that are vegans) eat them anyway because they are healthy not necessarily because they are flavorful. So I clearly know that I am looking for tasty flavors and consistency. What else? I am looking to learn about non traditional ingredients, different forms and shapes, modern equipment and how to operate it.

 

I’m sure my search and objectives are going to transform as I move forward in class but at this particular moment I come to realize that being a Yacht Chef that caters to non vegan guest and/or crew throws me into a “content” dilemma in my professional website.

 

I am looking to become a Vegan Chef in the Yachting World for my vegans and my non-vegans might even enjoy it! Next step, and pretty soon, probably this weekend will be to take a closer look to the content in my website and how to present Vegan Menus next to or close to Menus and photos of dishes that are non vegan.