Introduction

Dear Prospective Students,

Gastronomy is a scientific discipline with roots going back to very ancient times. The word gastronomy, formed from the Greek words gaster (stomach) and nomos (law, rule), emerged as the “law of the stomach”. In French it means “a curiosity to eat well; a healthy, well-organized, pleasant and tasty cuisine; the order and system of eating”. Broadly defined, gastronomy is the scientific discipline covering all of its elements: the detailed understanding, application and development of all characteristics of food and beverage production from its earliest beginnings in history, adapted to today’s conditions. Moreover, “the effort to understand everything people eat, since they realized that their existence and future depend on nutrition” is the best definition of gastronomy.

Food is one of the most basic human needs. In early times, people ate only to nourish themselves, regardless of what they ate. Growing relations among people first brought about socialization and later statehood. With the formation of states, travel began for various purposes, primarily trade, but also education, diplomacy, faith and others. During these journeys the need for ready-made food increased. To meet these needs, services covering the basic needs of travelers began to be offered in places such as inns and caravanserais. These venues became places where travelers not only ate to satisfy hunger but also acquired the habit of eating and drinking what they wished. With the development of trade and the emergence of wealthy groups, the bourgeois class took shape. In this period, banquet tables became a sign of superiority for members of the bourgeois class, which led the bourgeoisie to attach importance to chefs. In the same period, it became expected that dishes give pleasure not only through their flavors but also through visually appealing service and presentation. These developments in eating and drinking enabled the concept of gastronomy to gain importance. Today, eating, as part of culture, retains its importance for societies, and at state level it has gained an importance that cannot be ignored in international relations. Gastronomy and culinary arts departments, which aim to train qualified individuals for the food and beverage sector, are intended to raise experts who can cook professionally, serve their dishes properly, have general and specific knowledge of food and beverage culture, have acquired teamwork skills and have gained a second language.

In order for expert chefs and sous chefs to learn elegant and artistic service and presentation methods alongside professional cooking skills, kitchen guilds initially carried out education and training. In later periods, culinary schools were opened so that the art of cooking could be taught on a more detailed scale. After the first culinary schools were opened in England, culinary arts gradually gained importance in the USA and France. Current topics and trends such as gastrodiplomacy, local cuisine, home economics and sustainable eating habits, together with the negative developments the whole world has recently experienced regarding food, have revealed the necessity of including gastronomy and culinary arts in the education programs of countries. In Turkey, studies related to gastronomy science began to increase after the 1980s, and the gastronomy and culinary arts department, first opened in 2003, has gradually spread at university level.

Because the food and beverage industry needs trained, equipped and qualified employees, institutions providing gastronomy education have emerged. Accordingly, qualified staff for food and beverage businesses is provided through gastronomy education. As of 2021, the gastronomy and culinary arts department, which had completed 18 years, recorded its largest increase, 43.5%, between 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. This shows that demand for gastronomy and culinary arts departments is growing rapidly. Given such growth, training expert workforce for the food and beverage sector, which provides thousands of employment opportunities and is one of the important sources of income for countries, and which can respond to sector needs, is extremely important.