Name: Eric Backer
Account: Savannah State University
Tenure with Thompson Hospitality: 8 Months
Hometown: Lakemont, Georgia- look it up- Country!
Favorite Food: Food that is prepared with the freshest ingredients- sushi, salads, Mediterranean cuisine
Greatest Accomplishment: Taking 2 student teams to the American Culinary Federation (ACF) National Competitions; Only 4 teams make it to the national competition each year and I took a team in 2013 (2nd place) and in 2014 (3rd place). It was an incredible amount of work to get there and although it wore me out, I would never trade that experience for anything!
Name 1 Person You'd Love to Cook For: Tough Question! I would love to have prepared food for my paternal grandfather. He was a great man and never got to know me as a professional. I know he would have been immensely proud of my successes and even if I messed up the meal, he would have told me that he loved it.
What is the Most Interesting Thing You've Ever Cooked: A couple of years ago, I had the chance to spend a full weekend with 9 certified Master Chefs at a fundraiser for the Culinary Olympic Team. I spent time with all of them as they prepared food for a banquet that was $10,000 per person. Their dishes ranged greatly, but the one I enjoyed the most was preparing porches with the Dean of the Culinary Institute of America. He had spend three months in Italy studying regional preparations and was going to share his experiences with these elite guests. He let me do a lot of the work, but every step required fine tuning- down to how fine the rosemary was chopped and distributed over the pork belly. At any rate it was such a simple dish, but the details were incredibly precise.
Advice You Would Give to a New Chef: Travel! Experiencing other cultures and their cuisines will greatly influence your cooking and open your eyes. Seeing other cuisine will allow you to understand that you can creat using many different approaches and your palette will broaden. Most recently, I was in France and was watching an authentic preparation of foie gras. All the chef did was add salt and port. Of course he cleaned it and cooked it, but the take home is that it doesn't need to be an elaborate preparation- just honest.