The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) is a renowned culinary school located in Hyde Park, New York. It is widely regarded as one of the best culinary schools in the United States. The CIA offers a variety of culinary programs and degrees to aspiring chefs and culinary enthusiasts. One interesting aspect of the CIA is its mascot, the pig. The pig has long been associated with food and cooking, and its representation as the CIA mascot is a fitting choice. Pigs are commonly associated with an abundance of food and are often seen as a symbol of wealth and prosperity in many cultures.

The culinary institute of america mascot

SIGN UP & SAVE 10%

Bundle Up

$79.98 $ 79 98

$49.98 $ 49 98

$44.98 $ 44 98

$44.98 $ 44 98

$89.98 $ 89 98

$44.98 $ 44 98

$44.98 $ 44 98

$44.98 $ 44 98

Winter Essentials

Almost Gone!

$94.98 $ 94 98

$59.98 $ 59 98

$144.98 $ 144 98

Almost Gone!

$144.98 $ 144 98

Fan Favorite Headwear

Almost Gone!

$24.98 $ 24 98

$12.98 $ 12 98

$19.98 $ 19 98

Customer Service

• Spirit Shop Help
• Bookstore Help
• Track Order
• Size Chart

Worry Free Shopping

• Promo Terms and Exclusions
• Safe Shopping
• Shipping Rates
• Return Policy

Information

• My Spirit Shop Account
• About Us

• Promo Terms and Exclusions
• Spirit Shop Help
• Bookstore Help
• Return Policy
• Track My Order

Stay updated on sales, new items and more

SIGN UP & SAVE 10%

• Privacy Policy
• Your Privacy Choices
• Terms of Use
• Interest-Based Advertisement
• CA Supply Chains Act/UK Modern Slavery Act

© Fanatics, Inc., 2024. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this site may be reproduced or duplicated without the express permission of Fanatics, Inc.

The Culinary Institute of America Has A Basketball Team, and It's Named After a Tool That's Used to Sharpen Knives

Forget Duke, forget Stanford, forget Michigan State University: The best place to hoop in college might just be the Culinary Institute of America in New York. Yes, that’s right, the CIA has baking classes, an on-campus restaurant, and apparently serious intercollegiate sports. According to the New York Times, it’s all part of the culinary school’s push to “remake itself into a true four-year college.”

Now, up-and-coming chefs can ball hard while donning a CIA Steels jersey. Yes, the team’s mascot is a steel—a.k.a., a tool that is used to sharpen knives. What else did you really expect from a culinary school? To be fair, “steels” rolls off the tongue a lot easier than “chinois” or “Pacojet” and has a much better logo (above). As for who their opponents are, CIA teams play other schools from the Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference like the Pratt Institute, Cooper Union, and the SUNY College of Environmental Studies and Forestry.

David Whalen, the school’s associate dean for student activities, recreation, and athletics explains the program:

“ We want to set ourselves apart from other culinary school options; we do have that full-fledged campus life environment… As our education has evolved, our hope is that we’ll advance further with more athletic experiences for our students.”

The college now has five teams: ones for volleyball soccer, cross-country, tennis, and of course, basketball. And unlike other large schools, there are no scholarships—no matter how good you are. Most notably, if you’re required to do a shift at the school’s on-campus restaurant during a game, the shift comes first. The school also enrolls and graduates classes every three weeks, meaning players come and go quickly.

For those students not so keen on sports, the CIA offers classes on brewery operations and management, too, in partnership with Brooklyn Brewery. Set in a glass-walled environment “meant to evoke and old Brooklyn warehouse,” students will also learn how to make beer in the seven-barrel microbrewery. Jealous much?

• basketball

The Buzz on the CIA’s Bees

Unlock Full Access! Join DISH for recipes, videos, exclusive deals, and more with a 7-day free trial.

To an observer it must have looked like some bizarre heist movie. Here’s the scene: It was a warm night in late April. Ruined pillars from some forgotten structure loomed above the Hudson River. Flowers covered the apple trees nearby. A car approached, the headlights flashing, only to turn off the paved road at the last moment and park on the slope leading down to the fenced in ruins. Students approach, still dressed in their chef’s whites after completing their evening kitchen classes. “Did you get them?” they asked, in hushed tones. I nodded, feeling a big grin breaking out across my face. “Yep, all 40,000 of them. Driving over the river was nerve-wracking!” I opened the back door of my SUV and the students swarmed in, helping to lift and carry the two large boxes down the slope to the fenced in area surrounding the ruins. “The boxes are warm,” one student commented. “Is that normal?” “It is. Can you feel them vibrating?” I asked. “I can!” she nodded, her eyes wide. We carefully placed the boxes on the wooden pedestals we’d set up days earlier. I knelt and carefully peeled back the plastic covering the small opening, and we all scattered as something small and angry burst out of the box. Fortunately, nothing else happened and we repeated the process with the other box. We set up jars full of pale golden chamomile infused simple syrup the students brought with them and departed as quickly as we came. That’s how the two newest beehives arrived at The Culinary Institute’s Hyde Park campus. I had travelled across the Hudson River to the local beekeeping supply store to pick up two hive nucleuses (or nucs) that had wintered over locally. In each box were five frames of mixed larvae and honey as well as a single queen bee and all her attendants, drones, and the worker bees that made the hive function. They had to be picked up and installed at night, since all the forager bees would have returned to the hive at dusk. We didn’t want to leave anyone behind. (Bee-hind?) It isn’t easy moving beehives – they have to be moved either no more than a few feet away from their initial location or at least a few miles. Anything else disorients them. You need to be careful driving – imagine having an accident with two hives full of angry bees in the car! Recently an eighteen-wheeler carrying over 400 hives overturned in Utah, prompting a major emergency that ended in the tragic loss of millions of bees. Once they’ve arrived in their new homes the hives must be monitored for parasites and signs of crowding. You need to make sure the queen is healthy and laying well. It’s nerve wracking and rewarding work, and it requires a particular type of calm mindset. It isn’t a good idea to tend to the bees if you’re agitated or stressed, because agitated people make the bees nervous, with bad results all around. I find it soothing to have a task that requires me to focus myself entirely on the moment, my actions, and the safety of my student volunteers. When you tend the hives, all you can think about is the bees. I’ve been overseeing the Apiary project since 2017, when it was first proposed by a student in my Project in Applied Food Studies senior class. The class is intended to create lasting change on campus through allowing students to propose and carry out projects that they feel passionate about. They need to propose the project, gain administration approval, and figure out how to fund their proposals. Once approval is gained, they put in the hard work and sweat to build whatever is needed, and they tend to their projects afterward. I commit to carrying the projects forward, making sure that their efforts aren’t forgotten when they graduate, and acting as an advocate and resource center for the students, who do the hard work themselves. The apiary is one of our greatest success stories. It started when my students proposed bringing beehives back to campus (our previous beehives were removed when the student dining hall, the Egg, was added). In order to gain approval, students had to convince faculty, staff, and their fellow students that an apiary would make a good addition to campus. They conducted polls and public information sessions, scouted a good site, held a huge fundraising dinner to secure funds, cleared and prepped the abandoned area, built the stands for the beehives and the pollinator hotel, and planted the gardens. Every semester I make sure the gardens are maintained and the bees are cared for. Most recently an Applied Food Studies student won the contest for a new school mascot, and our school is now represented by Sting the Bee—an appropriate and tasteful choice! The Apiary is a small enclosure in a former pavilion that’s been turned into a drought tolerant, pollinator-friendly garden. We currently have three beehives housing upwards of 50,000 bees each. Keeping them alive is a struggle—bees have so many challenges these days. They suffer from loss of habitat, pesticides, weedkillers, increasing numbers of aggressive parasites, and industrial beekeeping practices that leave them malnourished and disoriented. If our pollinator populations weren’t in trouble, though, we wouldn’t feel that it was as urgently necessary to teach our students about them. For chefs with an interest in sustainability, there is no better practice than beekeeping. Pollinators are at the base of the food system we all rely on. An estimated 40% of all plant foods rely on pollinators, whose populations are in decline globally. Honeybees are the easiest to see because they conveniently bunch up so we can spot when they vanish, but other pollinators, including butterflies, are in trouble, too. We keep a pollinator hotel to allow students to get familiar with our solitary pollinator species, along with the beehives. Our gardens grow herbs that are tasty for humans and provide excellent food sources for butterflies. I find students down there often, watching the hives and reading, studying, or just taking a break in the garden. The Apiary helps to make the campus gardens more productive and provides honey for student projects and tastings. We hope to expand enough in the future to provide honey to our kitchens and bakeshops as well. Beekeeping is useful, but it’s also an adrenaline rush. When my student volunteers put on their beekeeping suits and reach their gloved hands into a box full of thousands of live bees, they are afraid. It’s good to be cautious. But when they pull out combs of spring honey that tastes like flowers and flows as pale as water, they are exhilarated. And so am I, watching their hard work bear fruit. Dr. Maureen Costura is a professor of liberal arts at our New York campus and is currently teaching a variety of classes in the Applied Food Studies bachelor’s degree program, like Gastronomy, Archaeology of Food, and Global Cultures and Cuisines. She holds a PhD in anthropology and an MA in archaeology from Cornell University. Her major research interests include French colonial societies and the archaeology of daily life, particularly the archaeology of food. Dr. Costura also maintains the on-campus apiary and beehives.

Pigs are commonly associated with an abundance of food and are often seen as a symbol of wealth and prosperity in many cultures. The choice of the pig as the CIA mascot also pays homage to the use of pork in culinary arts. Pork is a versatile meat that is used in various dishes and cuisines worldwide.

CIA FOODIES

The Buzz on the CIA’s Bees

To an observer it must have looked like some bizarre heist movie. Here’s the scene: It was a warm night in late April. Ruined pillars from some forgotten structure loomed above the Hudson River. Flowers covered the apple trees nearby. A car approached, the headlights flashing, only to turn off the paved road at the last moment and park on the slope leading down to the fenced in ruins. Students approach, still dressed in their chef’s whites after completing their evening kitchen classes. “Did you get them?” they asked, in hushed tones. I nodded, feeling a big grin breaking out across my face. “Yep, all 40,000 of them. Driving over the river was nerve-wracking!” I opened the back door of my SUV and the students swarmed in, helping to lift and carry the two large boxes down the slope to the fenced in area surrounding the ruins. “The boxes are warm,” one student commented. “Is that normal?” “It is. Can you feel them vibrating?” I asked. “I can!” she nodded, her eyes wide. We carefully placed the boxes on the wooden pedestals we’d set up days earlier. I knelt and carefully peeled back the plastic covering the small opening, and we all scattered as something small and angry burst out of the box. Fortunately, nothing else happened and we repeated the process with the other box. We set up jars full of pale golden chamomile infused simple syrup the students brought with them and departed as quickly as we came. That’s how the two newest beehives arrived at The Culinary Institute’s Hyde Park campus. I had travelled across the Hudson River to the local beekeeping supply store to pick up two hive nucleuses (or nucs) that had wintered over locally. In each box were five frames of mixed larvae and honey as well as a single queen bee and all her attendants, drones, and the worker bees that made the hive function. They had to be picked up and installed at night, since all the forager bees would have returned to the hive at dusk. We didn’t want to leave anyone behind. (Bee-hind?) It isn’t easy moving beehives – they have to be moved either no more than a few feet away from their initial location or at least a few miles. Anything else disorients them. You need to be careful driving – imagine having an accident with two hives full of angry bees in the car! Recently an eighteen-wheeler carrying over 400 hives overturned in Utah, prompting a major emergency that ended in the tragic loss of millions of bees. Once they’ve arrived in their new homes the hives must be monitored for parasites and signs of crowding. You need to make sure the queen is healthy and laying well. It’s nerve wracking and rewarding work, and it requires a particular type of calm mindset. It isn’t a good idea to tend to the bees if you’re agitated or stressed, because agitated people make the bees nervous, with bad results all around. I find it soothing to have a task that requires me to focus myself entirely on the moment, my actions, and the safety of my student volunteers. When you tend the hives, all you can think about is the bees. I’ve been overseeing the Apiary project since 2017, when it was first proposed by a student in my Project in Applied Food Studies senior class. The class is intended to create lasting change on campus through allowing students to propose and carry out projects that they feel passionate about. They need to propose the project, gain administration approval, and figure out how to fund their proposals. Once approval is gained, they put in the hard work and sweat to build whatever is needed, and they tend to their projects afterward. I commit to carrying the projects forward, making sure that their efforts aren’t forgotten when they graduate, and acting as an advocate and resource center for the students, who do the hard work themselves. The apiary is one of our greatest success stories. It started when my students proposed bringing beehives back to campus (our previous beehives were removed when the student dining hall, the Egg, was added). In order to gain approval, students had to convince faculty, staff, and their fellow students that an apiary would make a good addition to campus. They conducted polls and public information sessions, scouted a good site, held a huge fundraising dinner to secure funds, cleared and prepped the abandoned area, built the stands for the beehives and the pollinator hotel, and planted the gardens. Every semester I make sure the gardens are maintained and the bees are cared for. Most recently an Applied Food Studies student won the contest for a new school mascot, and our school is now represented by Sting the Bee—an appropriate and tasteful choice! The Apiary is a small enclosure in a former pavilion that’s been turned into a drought tolerant, pollinator-friendly garden. We currently have three beehives housing upwards of 50,000 bees each. Keeping them alive is a struggle—bees have so many challenges these days. They suffer from loss of habitat, pesticides, weedkillers, increasing numbers of aggressive parasites, and industrial beekeeping practices that leave them malnourished and disoriented. If our pollinator populations weren’t in trouble, though, we wouldn’t feel that it was as urgently necessary to teach our students about them. For chefs with an interest in sustainability, there is no better practice than beekeeping. Pollinators are at the base of the food system we all rely on. An estimated 40% of all plant foods rely on pollinators, whose populations are in decline globally. Honeybees are the easiest to see because they conveniently bunch up so we can spot when they vanish, but other pollinators, including butterflies, are in trouble, too. We keep a pollinator hotel to allow students to get familiar with our solitary pollinator species, along with the beehives. Our gardens grow herbs that are tasty for humans and provide excellent food sources for butterflies. I find students down there often, watching the hives and reading, studying, or just taking a break in the garden. The Apiary helps to make the campus gardens more productive and provides honey for student projects and tastings. We hope to expand enough in the future to provide honey to our kitchens and bakeshops as well. Beekeeping is useful, but it’s also an adrenaline rush. When my student volunteers put on their beekeeping suits and reach their gloved hands into a box full of thousands of live bees, they are afraid. It’s good to be cautious. But when they pull out combs of spring honey that tastes like flowers and flows as pale as water, they are exhilarated. And so am I, watching their hard work bear fruit. Dr. Maureen Costura is a professor of liberal arts at our New York campus and is currently teaching a variety of classes in the Applied Food Studies bachelor’s degree program, like Gastronomy, Archaeology of Food, and Global Cultures and Cuisines. She holds a PhD in anthropology and an MA in archaeology from Cornell University. Her major research interests include French colonial societies and the archaeology of daily life, particularly the archaeology of food. Dr. Costura also maintains the on-campus apiary and beehives.

Categories

• Allergen Friendly
• Appetizers, Hors D’oeuvre, and Snacks
• Beverages and Cocktails
• Breakfast and Brunch
• Cakes
• Cookies
• Desserts
• Family Fun
• Free Recipes
• Grilling
• Main Dishes
• One-Dish Meals
• Pantry
• Pies and Tarts
• Salads
• Sandwiches
• Sauces, Dressings, and Condiments
• Side Dishes
• Soups and Stews
• Uncategorized

Tags

Copyright © 2024 The Culinary Institute of America

At CIA, a not-for-profit college, more than 90% of our students receive scholarships and other forms of financial aid. Your patronage helps support this important priority, ensuring students can realize their dreams of attending the world’s premier culinary college.

• CIA
• Subscribe to our Email List
• Contact Us
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Nondiscrimination Statement

Публикация участника The Culinary Institute of America

The buzz around campus is true, we have a new mascot! Introducing Sting - inspired by mascot contest student winners, Emma Michaelis and Claire Masuda! Sting is tough and ready to defend the hive, but also friendly and up to any challenge in or out of the kitchen. #proud2bCIA #proud2beeCIA #defendthehive #cia75

• Копировать
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter

Development Executive at Exciting and Cutting-Edge National Restaurant Company

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

. and everyone wants a bee in the kitchen. Did "Fruit Fly"come in second?

PR/Integrated marketing professional

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

The bee’s knees❣️

Chef/Culinary Educator available for free-lance and culinary education classes/RETIRED Chef Instructor at Food & Finance High School

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

When are the t-shirts coming out?

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

My wife just said it should have been a cheese curd 🤣

Estate Manager, Chef, Corporate Flight Attendant

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

To Bee or not to Bee a CIA graduate. 1985 Alumni

Administration || Customer Service || Sales Management

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

This is the best! I need an alumni shirt with #defendthehive on it.

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

• Пожаловаться на этот комментарий

Чтобы просмотреть или add a comment, выполните вход

It has a rich flavor and can be prepared in a multitude of ways, making it a staple ingredient in many culinary creations. In addition to the use of pork, the pig mascot represents the dedication and hard work required to succeed in the culinary arts. Pigs are known for their perseverance and determination, characteristics that are deeply valued in the culinary industry. The culinary profession requires individuals to put in long hours, constantly learn and improve their skills, and have a strong work ethic. The pig mascot of the CIA serves as a symbol of the school's commitment to excellence in culinary education and the pursuit of culinary mastery. The choice of the pig as the mascot reflects the school's emphasis on the importance of hard work, dedication, and the pursuit of culinary excellence. In conclusion, the Culinary Institute of America's mascot, the pig, represents the school's commitment to excellence in culinary education and the pursuit of culinary mastery. The pig is a symbol of abundance, versatility, and hard work, all of which are ideals embraced by the culinary industry..

Reviews for "A Day in the Life of Chef Chops: The Mascot of the Culinary Institute of America"

1. Jane - 1 star

I was really disappointed with the culinary institute of america mascot. It felt like a major letdown. First of all, the mascot itself was just not appealing. It looked nothing like a culinary institute mascot should. It was a strange combination of random kitchen utensils and food items that didn't go together at all. It was confusing and lacked creativity. And secondly, the mascot didn't even interact with the crowd or engage the audience during the event. It just stood there, expressionless, and didn't do anything to add excitement or energy to the atmosphere. Overall, I was highly unimpressed and wouldn't recommend the culinary institute of america mascot to anyone.

2. Mark - 2 stars

I have mixed feelings about the culinary institute of america mascot. On one hand, it was unique and memorable. The combination of kitchen utensils and food items was certainly unexpected and made it stand out. However, on the other hand, the design was quite busy and cluttered. It was difficult to understand what exactly the mascot was trying to represent. Additionally, the costume itself seemed poorly made and lacked attention to detail. Overall, while I appreciate the attempt at creating a distinctive mascot, I think it fell short of expectations.

3. Emily - 1 star

The culinary institute of America mascot was a complete disaster. It looked like a poorly executed art project gone wrong. The combination of random kitchen utensils and food items looked more like a mishmash of unrelated objects rather than a cohesive mascot. It was confusing and unappealing to look at. Moreover, the mascot didn't add any value to the event. It barely interacted with the audience and didn't contribute to the overall atmosphere. I was extremely disappointed and wouldn't want to see that mascot ever again.

Symbolizing Excellence in Culinary Arts: The Significance of the Culinary Institute of America Mascot