Celebrity Chef José Andrés To Teach A Course At GW

While students at The George Washington University may be known for their political passions, the foodies on campus will soon be coming out of the woodworks. The university recently announced that world-renowned DC celebrity Chef José Andrés will be teaching a course there next semester.

The course, called "The World on a Plate: How Food Shapes Civilization" will be held once a week with 230 spots available to GW undergraduate and graduate students. The class curriculum plans to address the history of food, issues of obesity and the relationship between food and national security.

"Food is the ideal context for communicating ideas. Eating is the one thing, besides breathing, that we all do from the day we are born until the day we die. Food is that thread that runs through the fabric of society: culture, energy, art, science, the economy, national security, the environment, health, politics, diplomacy," said Andrés in the course description. "I could not be more proud than to bring this idea—an education course focused on the power of food and how it changes the world—to life here at GW."

This is not Andrés first experience with teaching. In 2010, he taught a culinary physics course at Harvard University.

According to the course description, Mr. Andrés will teach some of the classes. The rest will be taught by GW faculty and guest lecturers, including Andrew Zimmerman of the Travel Channel series Bizarre Foods; Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking; Alice Kamps, who curated the National Archives exhibit What’s Cooking Uncle Sam?; and Philip Derfler, the deputy administrator for the Food Safety and Inspection Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

GW students are in for a treat...and perhaps some samples of the deliciousness that Andrés is famous for?

[photo by Dave Phillipich]