"We had white instructors teaching Southern cuisine and no one teaching anything on African cuisine," she said. "The school continues to hire women and people of color and will be offering a concentration in the African Diaspora study in the near future." (The Culinary Institute of America said the semester-long bachelor’s degree concentration in the Cuisines of Africa and its Diaspora in the Americas will debut in 2023). During her time studying at the CIA, she said she had one Black instructor - a man - in the culinary arts department. Since Sanders became the first Black woman culinary chef instructor at the CIA, she said she has seen a difference. I never saw him again after that but I always say he was my guardian angel,” she said. “On my graduation day, he said to me 'See you in a few weeks for your bachelor’s and I was not planning on that whatsoever but he insisted and I did. She received her bachelor’s degree in culinary management. "Yes, there are other culinary schools to attend but this is the Harvard, Yale and Princeton of cooking and this was my dream," she said.Īfter graduating with her associate’s degree, Sanders was not planning on applying for her bachelor’s but said a janitor at the school convinced her to do it. They asked if she was interested in attending CIA since her plan was to always attend the school.
In 2011, Sanders said the CIA randomly reached out to her after not being able to attend after high school. "Everyone knew that being in the kitchen was what I wanted to do," she said. She said she would volunteer for kitchen help. She was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the 4th Engineer Battalion.
"At the time, I had three friends joining the military and I figured since they are offering college, help and aid why not serve my country for four years and have the financial support to then get my culinary education." But she found another way to attend by joining the Army. Sanders' dream of attending the Culinary Institute of America felt as if it were slipping away. In 1970, the CIA moved to its current location in Hyde Park, N.Y. The school trained returning World War II veterans in the culinary arts, enrolled 50 students and employed a faculty consisting of a chef, a baker and a dietitian. The CIA was founded in New Haven and was known as New Haven Restaurant Institute in 1946 where it first opened its doors as the first and only cooking school in the United States, according to the school’s website. She said she could not afford it even with financial aid help. "But it was not an easy road." She applied to the Culinary Institute of America after graduating high school in 2007 and was accepted, but there was one bump in the road that was too big to overcome: the cost of tuition. Sanders then took it upon herself to attend Bullard Havens Technical High School in Bridgeport and chose culinary as her trade "In high school, I noticed I had a unique passion for cooking and the rest is history," she said. "I was raised by a single parent and my mom would juggle three incomes, all of them in the food industry." Sanders credits food for saving her mom’s life as it was a way to “get out of lifestyle” of drug addiction.Ĭhef Roshara Sanders of the Culinary Instistute of America Contributed by Debbie Lemonte "I was raised in the food industry as my mom worked in the food industry and still does," she said. She teaches culinary fundamentals, the first kitchen class students take to learn the basic culinary science techniques, and she is also the culinary advisor to the Black Culinary Society, part of the faculty council.īorn and raised in Bridgeport, Sanders, 33, said she always had a love for cooking, but it was a way for her to “come out of the 'hood.”
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