{"id":654863,"date":"2013-04-27T16:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-04-27T20:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=636472"},"modified":"2013-04-27T16:00:04","modified_gmt":"2013-04-27T20:00:04","slug":"feast-brings-the-online-academy-model-to-cooking-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/654863","title":{"rendered":"Feast brings the online academy model to cooking classes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to learn how cook? These days it seems like a PC or a tablet is a more indispensible kitchen tool<\/a> than a saut\u00e9 pan or a chef\u2019s knife. The internet is a treasure trove of recipes and techniques<\/a> \u2013 and increasingly ingredients \u2013 for the aspiring chef. It was only a matter of time before we saw cooking schools move online.<\/p>\n

TV shows Top Chef<\/a><\/i> and America\u2019s Test Kitchen<\/a><\/i> have both launched their own online cooking programs, and we\u2019ve even see the emergence of the first online professional culinary school<\/a>. Now a San Francisco startup called Feast<\/a> is taking a tech startup\u2019s approach to the cooking school.<\/p>\n

\"saute<\/a>Feast co-founder and CEO David Spinks<\/a> doesn\u2019t have a cooking background. Instead he\u2019s online community developer that has created or managed the community portals for the LeWeb conferences<\/a>, Zaarly<\/a>, u30pro, BlogDash and Scribnia. He even created a meta-community for community managers called, you guessed it, TheCommunityManager<\/a>. But after he did some consulting work for online learning startup Udemy<\/a>, helping it develop its community strategy, Spinks got the idea for Feast.<\/p>\n

Spinks said he wanted to apply the same online education methods underlying teaching sites like Udemy and Coursera<\/a> to create a platform for cooking lessons. In addition, Spinks wanted to anchor those classes with a strong community, not only to address the inevitable questions and problems that emerge when trying to prepare a dish, but to keep students interested and engaged.<\/p>\n

Spinks added that he didn\u2019t want to create something dull or overly academic either \u2013 not the cooking equivalent of a coding course.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to take the entertainment value you get on television, but create a format where you can actually learn,\u201d Spinks said. \u201cThere is a problem with the Food Network. It\u2019s entertaining you, but they\u2019re not really teaching you how to cook. They\u2019re selling you a lifestyle. We\u2019re actually trying to get you in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last fall, Feast launched its first online cooking course, a four-week class designed to teach basic cooking techniques ranging from knife skills to braising. Led by Feast\u2019s in-house chef Jeremy Umansky, the self-paced lessons use detailed text descriptions and photographs along with numerous videos.<\/p>\n