Other modules cover food charities and sexual harassment in the kitchen in the wake of a recent wave of reports of #Metoo-style abuse by dictatorial and macho chefs.
The essays so far have focused on topics such as aquaculture in response to overfishing, the power of organic labels, vegetarian ‘meat’, as well as drier topics such as the history of agriculture, food safety in the European Union and agro-industrial strategies.
In parallel, students attend unconventional lectures, such as on “umami and the secrets of the fifth flavor” by Fabrizio Bucella, sommelier and professor at the Free University of Brussels or another by Dajo Aertssen, runner-up in the world championship of coffee tasting in ” What is a good coffee?
“Here we intend to do things seriously without taking ourselves seriously,” Sciences Po director Pierre Mathiot told Le Monde.
Role Play by Deliveroo
Students also participate in role plays in which one plays the television journalist and the others the heads of food delivery companies, including Uber Eats and its French equivalent, Deliveroo. They are questioned on issues including the IPO and often precarious working conditions, hot political issues in France.
Your responses are timed and marked.
Some students confessed not being sure if getting stuck in eating, drinking and living up to it would actually translate into job prospects.
“At first, we wondered if our future employers would laugh when they saw the title ‘drink, eat, live’ on our CV,” said an anonymous student in the first year of the course.
“But given the initial feedback from the companies, we are convinced it will work.”
In fact, the big names in the French food world are reportedly already lining up to welcome you.
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