| Dear Candidates, | |
| Gastronomy is a science that dates back to ancient times. The gastronomy, which is a combination of the Greek words gaster (stomach) and nomos (law, rules), emerged as the law of the stomach. French “curiosity to eat well; It means “healthful, well-arranged, pleasant and delicious cuisine, food order and system”. To explain the word gastronomy in a broad sense; With all the elements it contains, it can be expressed as a branch of science that covers the detailed understanding, application and development of all the features of food and beverage production from the beginning in history and making it suitable for today's conditions. Also, "the effort to understand everything that people eat since they understand that their existence and future depends on nutrition" is the best definition of gastronomy. | |
| Food is one of the most basic human needs. In ancient times, people ate only for nutritional purposes, regardless of what they ate. The increase in relations between people brought primarily socialization and then stateization. With the formation of states, education, diploma, belief, etc., especially trade. travels began. During these travels, the need for ready meals increased. In places such as inns and caravan palaces established to meet these needs, services have begun to be offered to meet the basic needs of passengers. These places have been places where passengers gain the habit of not only eating but also eating and drinking whatever they want. With the development of trade, the emergence of rich groups led to the formation of the bourgeois class. In this period, banquet tables became an indicator of superiority for individuals belonging to the bourgeois class. This situation enabled the bourgeois class to give importance to cooks. In the same period, besides the flavors of the dishes, the visual service and presentation methods were expected to give pleasure to the person. These developments in eating and drinking activities have enabled the concept of gastronomy to gain importance. While the phenomenon of eating, which is a part of culture today, maintains its importance for societies, it has gained an importance that cannot be ignored due to international relations at the level of states. Departments of gastronomy and culinary arts aiming to train qualified individuals for the food and beverage sector; It aims to train individuals who are experts in their field, have cooking skills, can serve the food properly, have learned general and specific information about food and beverage culture, have acquired the ability to work collaboratively, and have acquired a second language. | |
| Chefs and assistant chiefs who are experts in their fields; In addition to professional cooking skills, kitchen guilds carried out educational activities for the first time so that they could learn stylish and artistic service and presentation methods. In later periods, culinary schools were opened in order to teach the art of cooking on a more detailed scale. After the opening of the first culinary schools in England, culinary arts gained increasing importance in the USA and France. The interest in current issues and trends such as gastro diplomacy, local cuisine, home economy, sustainable eating habits, as well as the recent negative developments in food all over the world have revealed that gastronomy and culinary arts should be included in the education programs of countries. In Turkey, studies related to gastronomy started to increase after the 1980s, and the gastronomy and culinary arts department, which was opened for the first time in 2003, has gradually increased its prevalence at the university level. | |
| In the food and beverage industry; As a result of the need for educated, equipped and qualified employees, it has also led to the emergence of institutions that provide gastronomy education. Accordingly, the provision of qualified personnel in food and beverage businesses is provided by gastronomy training. The gastronomy and culinary arts department, which will have completed 18 years as of 2021, achieved the highest increase by 43.5% between 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. This shows that the demand for gastronomy and culinary arts departments is increasing rapidly. In the face of such growth, it is extremely important to train a qualified workforce that can meet the sector's needs for the food and beverage sector, which provides thousands of employment opportunities and is one of the important income sources of the countries.
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