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 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,  ingredients that are traditionally unknown like algies and fungai and training in the use of Modernist Cuisine techniques like Molecular Gastronomy, advance flavoring techniques and instruments… 10 minute Facebook call with Manuel Lynch (owner and director of Sabor Vegan Culinary Academy) and bam I was sold.

A couple of weeks later  I’m taking a flight acroos the Atlantic Ocean from USA to Spain. I’m sitting in class, this time in Palma de Mallorca. I’m reading about nutritional values of nuts, omami, Caisen, Neu5GC, Glycemic index, making gelified spheres, looking and tasting ingredients that I have never even heard of. It didn’t take long to realize that I am immerse in a whole different word. This class if beyond a cooking class or a nutrition class and my way of doing things and life style might be about to change entirely.

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 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,  ingredients that are traditionally unknown like algies and fungai and training in the use of Modernist Cuisine techniques like Molecular Gastronomy, advance flavoring techniques and instruments… 10 minute Facebook call with Manuel Lynch (owner and director of Sabor Vegan Culinary Academy) and bam I was sold.

A couple of weeks later  I’m taking a flight acroos the Atlantic Ocean from USA to Spain. I’m sitting in class, this time in Palma de Mallorca. I’m reading about nutritional values of nuts, omami, Caisen, Neu5GC, Glycemic index, making gelified spheres, looking and tasting ingredients that I have never even heard of. It didn’t take long to realize that I am immerse in a whole different word. This class if beyond a cooking class or a nutrition class and my way of doing things and life style might be about to change entirely.

So. I decided to blog about my learning process 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…or that caw’s milk contains an ingredient that behaves like an opiate making cheese consumption highly addictive..(I will probably end up blogging about these interesting facts soon just because they are so interesting).

The first homework included to write 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 one 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, I don’t want to become an irritating Vegan Preacher and I can go on about what I know I don’t want to do or be. 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 vegans ( I will refer as my “vegans” to guest, clients or crew that are vegans and I cook for) and serve them a delicious vegan dish that is not only highly nutritious but delicious at the same time. One of my vegan friends says that being vegan doesn’t mean that she wants a salad and it can get boring like everything else that you repeat after a while. And I always have that thought in mind. I also know that I am looking for something new and different.

I have tried numerous vegan recipes in the past but some 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 eat the dishes 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 presentation forms and shapes of traditional and non traditional ingredients, modern equipment or simply equipment that will make my life in the galley easier and faster weather modern or not 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 and I have to review it from its core: myself and what I can offer as a Private Chef.

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. And I would love to have inputs from my class mates and instructors.

Cheers and Thanx for reading!