Mozart and Chefs: Start Young

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Music seems to breed or bring out child prodigies. Take Mozart -- this year marks the quarter-millennium anniversary of his birthday, after all -- he was performing on violin before the Archbishop of Salzburg before he was six years old, composing before he was ten. Is the same true for chefs? How young are they when they find their calling? Each chef recounts their earliest food memories in Super Chef, and while the experiences go back to almost toddler years, the calling seems to come in the teens. No surpise, then, when the Arts Institutes kicked off their Best Teen Chef competition in 2000. This year, the sixth annual event was in Ft. Lauderdale -- so AI has clearly identified its target audience. Media coverage has been good in places where local kids have been selected to compete, like Chicago (topped off with a hometown kid, too). And AI added former White House executive chef Walter Scheib as judge -- between his own catering events (see Wall Street Journal article). The winner came from Dallas -- so clearly Chef Scheib holds no grudges against the Bush family after parting ways with them last year. This year, however, we have kids -- kids, not teens -- getting into the act. Come on, you can see how this would come about. Musician parents encourage their kids to study music, and plenty of chefs have brought their kids into the kitchen at a young and tender age. This year, some Chicago parents -- executive chef and father Rick Tramonto and executive pastry chef and mother Gale Gand by name -- are arriving at the 2006 James Beard Awards with nine-year-old son Gio Tramonto, representing nominee Spatulatta.com. As a guest chef for the website, young Gio has demonstrated such recipes as his grandmothe's pancakes (see video) with hosts Isabella (10) and Olivia (8), part of Spatulatta's weekly flow of five-minute online videos. Mind you, young Gio is hardly less experienced in Media than in the kitchen -- and not just because his mama has been a regular star on the Food Network. He was featured in Food & Wine four years ago -- that's about Mozart's debut age -- in an article entitled "Cooking at Six | Cooking with Children." Yep, he's been there and and done that already, so don't sweat about Gio out there in front of all those cameras. Instead, on the awards night this coming Monday, May 8, the kitchen sweat, if any, will be streaming off of Papa Rick and Mama Gale. Good luck, parents! Video: Gio videos Previous articles: Foie Gras War: Chicago Ban Christmas Desserts: iSi Whip & Recipes Foie Gras War: Voodoo and Vigilantes IACP: For the Love of Food Foie Gras War: Chicago Slaughterhouse Foie Gras War 2: Ban All Poultry? Wall Street Journal: Beef over Chef Sponsorship? Gale Gand on Mr. "Easy-Bake Oven" Gale Gand's short+sweet [Food Television - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging, Gio Tramonto, Rick Tramonto, Gale Gand --> back to superchefblog