A history of The Culinary Institute of America: 1956-66

Following World War II, the US – still a relatively young country at the time – enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity. Underscoring the luxuries this dynamic allowed for, the nation also developed a culture of culinary appreciation and ambition, at least in the home. The Culinary Institute of America reflected that state of affairs, a give-and-take that would become a feature of the school’s role over the next half century.

Much of early 20th Century US history was marred by tragedy and challenge on a grand scale – World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War – traumatic, often violent and deadly events that taxed the American public personally, financially, and emotionally. In the Eisenhower era, Americans could exhale and enjoy, and a few hugely influential businesses and personalities rose to prominence by satisfying an increased interest in food and cooking.

Foremost among these were James Beard and Julia Child. Beard, the portly culinary enthusiast, retired Army cryptographer, and onetime acting aspirant, starred in the first nationally televised cooking show, I Love to Eat, in the 1940s, and went on to write recipe books and open a modest culinary school in New York City. Child, meantime, became a full-blown television star thanks to her program The French Chef, which sought to demystify the daunting techniques and phraseology of French kitchens for an American public increasingly intrigued by European cuisine. (American home cooks were equipped for their newfound passion by such businesses as Williams-Sonoma, the influential retail and mail-order company founded by Chuck Williams in the 1950s.)

In time, the American preoccupation with food seeped into the restaurant industry, where homegrown impresarios began competing with the European old guard. In a sign of things to come, Joe Baum’s Restaurant Associates, colloquially known in the industry as RA, opened distinctly American restaurants that became fine-dining institutions, an area previously monopolised generally by Europeans and specifically by the French. The disparate segments of the burgeoning American culinary scene eventually coalesced; for example, to help conceptualise RA’s landmark Manhattan dining temple The Four Seasons, opened in 1959, the company enlisted none other than Beard.

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These exciting developments in the US’s culinary culture rippled throughout the CIA in myriad ways. On the most basic level, enrolment swelled to theretofore unprecedented numbers, straining the capacity of the school’s physical facility. And, to expand its instructor ranks, the school drew on alumni of the country’s premiere restaurants, such as Clement Granger, former chef of the storied Manhattan French restaurant Le Pavillon, and former pastry chef of The Four Seasons, Albert Kumin.

In 1965, to seize and build on the moment, the Institute recruited Jacob ‘Jack’ Rosenthal, a seasoned food-industry professional who had most recently served as Vice President and Marketing Director for the national coffee company Chock Full O’Nuts, to succeed Director Roth as the first president of the CIA.

Among the first orders of business for Rosenthal and his colleagues, was to find a larger home for the school. In time, they settled on the grounds of the St. Andrew’s-on-Hudson Jesuit seminary, an 83-acre, turn-of-the-century property situated on a high bluff in Hyde Park, New York, 80 miles north of New York City in the magnificent Hudson River Valley.

The decision made a statement: Once relocated, the school itself would have graduated from a cluster of buildings to a full-fledged college campus with endless room for expansion.

“It was a statement of big ambition,” says current CIA President, Dr Tim Ryan. “There was a lot of canvas to fill in here. It took quite a few years. I remember standing on the steps of Roth Hall as a student and thinking, ‘This building is really cool. This could really be something one day.’”

In September 1972, after a renovation that required more than a year, the Institute began receiving students in its new home, and a new era in its history began in earnest.

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