April 21, 2023 – Take the wayback time machine to 17th century France and land in a bucolic meadow outside of Paris on a beautiful fall day. Two members of the Royal Guild of Rôtisseurs are tending to a goose that is spinning, sizzling and roasting over an open fire. Their apprentices are scurrying about ensuring a superior outcome – and continuity of professional gastronomic standards for the pleasures of the table. Before lamenting the loss of such rich history, Chaîne members should mark their calendars for fall 2024 when the County College of Morris (CCM) in Randolph, New Jersey, about 30 miles northwest of New York City, will dedicate their new Entrepreneurship and Culinary Science Center. It will include a new baking and pastry kitchen, a culinary science lab, a new dining room and an outdoor culinary hearth/classroom where Professor Mark Cosgrove, CCM Department Chair, Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts, Bailli, Bailliage Joseph Donon; and Emily Guderian, CCM Lab Coordinator, Chaîne Foundation scholarship recipient and Vice Chargée de Missions, Bailliage Joseph Donon, will teach their students ancient cooking methods. “We will be offering not farm-to-table, but forest-to-table,” Mark said to Chaîne during an April 11 telephone interview. And before the event, Emily will probably be near the forest securing the goose!

 

Emily Guderian

Emily hails from a family lineage of farmers, hunters, butchers and foodies. “We have a very big family. My mom is one of seven so holidays are always a big to do with lots of family and cooking and decorating for every single holiday. I’ve always had a love for it,” Emily said during the April 11 interview.

Her skills extend well beyond the kitchen. She is an avid hunter and angler so the fruits of those hobbies merge seamlessly with her vocation in Hospitality Management. CCM students must surely be amazed when she guides them through butchering a goose or a goat. Emily said she uses every part of a goose by making stock from the bones and even preparing and grilling the heart. Last year her students winced a bit when they heard what they would be tasting. “They all looked at me like I had five heads,” she said, reminding them they just had to try it, not like it, as the CCM program seeks to expand their palates. Notching an experience they will take into their careers, the students admitted they liked the taste of Emily’s goose heart.

As Lab Coordinator, her responsibilities include keeping the kitchen stocked and the equipment in working order, helping to plan events, and working with students during their hands-on learning activities that are part of the curriculum. “I’m the go-to person for a lot of things,” she explained.

Emily first came to CCM in 2015 as a student after deciding her path at another university where she was majoring in history was not for her. She followed her heart and her head when she enrolled in CCM’s Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts program. She already had a wealth of life experience in both. At age 17, she began working for her cousin who started a local rock climbing gym. Management skills run deep in the family and soon her cousin was adding locations. By age 19, Emily had more than 25 employees reporting to her as she managed her cousin’s growing business that eventually expanded to 13 locations.

As a community college, Emily completed her two-year degree at CCM and then took a position with Wegmans, first training at a few locations and then being selected to open and manage a new location in Hanover.

Almost five years ago, she found her way back to CCM when Mark recruited her for their open Lab Coordinator position. Nurturing both students and staff, a former CCM dean advised Emily to return to school to complete her Bachelor and Master’s degrees. After working and attending school full time for the past two years, Emily has five weeks remaining until she graduates with a Bachelor of Arts in Hospitality and Tourism Management from the Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) International School of Hospitality, Sports and Tourism Management.

Chef Mark Cosgrove

Mark has an equally fascinating life story about how he found his way to a culinary arts career. From age two to 12, he was a “corporate brat” as his family moved from the United States to Canada and then to Paris because of his father’s job. His three years in France made a lasting impression on him. He remembers seeing Chaîne signs at restaurants and associating those signs with high quality food, in particular, a really good sole meunière. A vivid memory also includes his first visit to a McDonald’s, located on the Champs-Élysées.

“By the time we came back to the United States, I had a totally different concept of what food was. It wasn’t that the food in the U.S. was bad, it just wasn’t the same,” Mark said. As he grew, he began searching to recreate the food he had in France.

Whatever he chose to do in life was fine with his father as long as it was pursued after he earned a college degree. Mark said his father insisted he become an “educated ditch digger” so after graduating from Lasalle University in Philadelphia, Mark’s door to the kitchen opened. On a trip visiting friends in the Hudson Valley, Mark said they crossed the Hudson River and someone in the car said, “Oh, that’s the place you go to learn how to be a chef.” Mark was startled as he gazed at the CIA Hyde Park campus. “I never knew you could do that. When did this begin? So that was literally it,” Mark said.

In a New York minute, Mark enrolled in the CIA and to him, even though it was a two-year program to earn an associates degree, it was his graduate degree. With two degrees in hand, Mark began his career, quickly climbing the ladder in the corporate kitchen of a local bank. After another corporate stint, he went into the catering business on his own, a deep dive into entrepreneurship that also literally involved deep dives in the ocean as he catered tourist trips to sunken ships, such as the SS Andrea Doria off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts (1956) and the USS Monitor off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina (1862). While someone watched his food, he participated in the dives to explore the shipwrecks. “That was a lot of fun and it was good training,” Mark said.

When a CCM professor took a one-year sabbatical 27 years ago, Mark agreed to fill in as an adjunct professor. The professor never returned to campus so Mark stayed and today is Department Chair, guiding about 100 students in CCM’s academic degree and certificate programs, and another 40 students in other programs for high school students and adults with special needs.

Mark and Emily are a dynamic, fun team with students at the center of everything they do.

“Without Emily, none of this would be happening. She identifies much more easily with our students. I am the old and she is the new,” Mark said. But that doesn’t mean Mark is resting on his laurels. He is busier than ever with the college expansion project and his work with the Bailliage.

Bailliage Joseph Donon

As the driving force establishing Bailliage Joseph Donon in June 2021 and its first Bailli, Dr. John Niser, Director of FDU’s International School of Hospitality, Sports and Tourism Management (ISHSTM), shares Mark’s dedication to educating the next generation of hospitality and culinary professionals.

“As we all know Chaîne finds its roots in the guilds, a formidable and powerful mechanism for the transmission of a craft from one generation to the other. While the world of education has become more complex and obtaining skills is long and expensive, the reality is that the foundation on which the guilds worked still works today. The recipe is simple, it boils down to creating the circumstances and places where young people interact with masters in their field. The Bailliage Joseph Donon is designed to offer such a place where young professionals in the making can interact with Chaîne professionals. Today, the skill gap is narrowing but the experience gap is widening, we are trying to help bridge that gap,” Dr. Niser said in an email.

Upon becoming President of Les Amis d’Escoffier Society of New York in 2022, Dr. Niser asked Mark last summer if he would consider taking the helm of the Bailliage. Mark readily agreed. Mark also has been re-elected to another three-year term starting July 1, 2023.

With more than 100 student members, the Bailliage provides unique opportunities for them now more than ever because of the extended Covid lockdown. Mark said it took him awhile to figure it out but he and other faculty members finally realized that students beginning college last year had not been to a wedding or family party in years so had no life experience to draw upon at college.

In addition, students watched a lot of culinary shows during the lockdown and came to college thinking they were already master chefs. But the CCM core curriculum guides students step-by-step in culinary and business basics to build a solid foundation. They will learn by doing that mastering culinary arts as a chef may take a decade or more.

Having students gain experience catering college events is very helpful but there are limitations. Mark said traditionally, students are told, “Stand there, smile, keep your hands behind your back, and don’t do anything.” As they progress in their CCM studies, they are given the opportunity to operate a food truck for a day and then reality quickly hits home. Managing food costs, quantity of food needed so there is not waste, and food quality can be overwhelming yet a valuable lesson for burgeoning professionals.

 

But with Bailliage events, students can be actively involved. Mark tells them to think of a Chaîne event as hosting friends at their home. They plan and execute the party from start to finish, even being allowed to eat leftovers!

On Nov. 17, 2022, the Bailliage hosted a Goose Roast at CCM. Mark told his students, “Go ahead and enjoy it but while you’re enjoying it, stand there and carve the raclette.” Students had never tasted goose before so it was another life experience to notch. “And we were pulling kids off the floor and telling them to go carve the goose,” Mark said with a chuckle. They wholeheartedly embraced the event even with one culinary mishap. Students prepared and served Turducken. “It was a bit of a disaster. It looked like it had been thrown through a wood chipper,” Mark said.

Planning to be an annual event, Mark already has Turducken Galantine on the menu for a second attempt at next year’s Goose Roast. “The Chaîne is a really great opportunity for us, much like my sole meunière as a kid,” he added.

At the end of the evening, Emily was in the audience listening to the description of the person who would be granted a Chaîne Foundation scholarship. She said she was looking around at her students wondering who would be called when she heard her name. “First, it was a huge shock. Mark did a very good job keeping it from me. It was absolutely amazing. I was so honored and so thankful. When they called my name, I almost fell over,” Emily said.

To actively engage more students from five community colleges associated with the Bailliage and decrease travel distances, Bailli Cosgrove and his team will appoint a Chargé de Missions or Chargée de Missions at each school. Local Chaîne events will be facilitated and the entire Bailliage can come together once or twice per year at the Goose Roast and Induction.

Into the Future

Without a doubt, 2023 will remain a busy year for Mark as he is integral to both the CCM expansion and growth of the student-centered Bailliage. Mark believes the new CCM facilities will be the envy of Northern New Jersey.

Adapting to reality in real time is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Providing students with real work experience as early as possible is key to CCM’s Culinary Arts and Science Program. Working closely with Dr. Niser at FDU, students who complete their CCM degree then have the option to enroll in FDU where an immersion program is offered for aspiring chefs. Students live and work at the Sea Island Resort in Georgia while completing other coursework online to complete their Bachelor’s degree. There are currently two CCM graduates in the FDU immersion program.

Emily’s calendar will clear somewhat after graduation but CCM has class until the end of June for their high school and adult students. And amid the hectic pace of finishing her degree, Emily is planning her own wedding this summer. Before she knows it, it will be back-to-school when she will be finalizing details for the second Chaîne Goose Roast.

Mark and Emily, modern day rôtisseurs with deep respect for history, will certainly host an outstanding goose roast and then once their outdoor Culinary Hearth is built, CCM and Bailliage Joseph Donon will be the envy of not only Northern New Jersey but also the world.

Get ready to take a time machine into a very bright future for hospitality and culinary students. No lightning needed.

Links

County College of Morris (CCM) Dept. of Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts