This research presents the findings of a year long study, undertaken between 2016 and 2017, seeking to understand the degree to which students are influenced to attend culinary school by food medias, social media, and the Food Network. The notion that food medias draw the majority of new cooks to the industry is often present in popular media discourses, although no data exists seeking to understand this relationship. This study reveals that food medias play a secondary or tertiary role in influencing students to register at culinary school, while also showing previously unknown patterns related to culinary students’ intention to persist with culinary careers. Nearly 40 percent of this sample do not intend to remain cooking professionally for greater than five years, and about 30 percent are “keeping other doors open” upon entry into culinary school. Although food celebrity certainly plays a role in awareness about culinary careers, intrinsic career aspirations are the most frequently reported motivation.

Les chercheurs doivent citer ce travail comme suit :

• Whibbs, R., Holmes, M., (2025), "Food Network’s food-career frenzy? An examination of students’ motivations to attend culinary school", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i2.255)

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1. chefs
2. culinary school
3. Food Network
4. motivation
5. social media

Original publication: Whibbs, Ryan; Holmes, Mark. "Food Network’s food-career frenzy? An examination of students’ motivations to attend culinary school." Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation, vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, pp. 101–116. DOI: 10.15353/cfs-rcea.v6i2.255. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l'alimentation. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in CFS/RCÉA prior to and including Vol. 8, No. 3 (2021) is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY license. Work published in Vol. 8, No. 4 (2021) and after is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license. For details, see creativecommons.org/licenses/.