When a colleague of Camosun culinary arts chair Gilbert Noussitou insisted that Noussitou attend a recent national conference of the Canadian Culinary Federation (CCF), he kind of knew something was up. But little did Noussitou realize that he’d be coming back home from the conference as a prestigious member of the CCF’s honour society, a lifetime achievement award.
“This award feels quite special in the sense that it’s coming from colleagues from all across the country, so it means so much to me,” says Noussitou from his summer holidays in France, where he spent many of his early years training in the culinary arts and honing his chef skills.
Noussitou, who began working at the college in 1987, has been a member of the CCF for 37 years. The CCF honour society recognizes leadership, professional excellence, lifetime commitment, and significant contributions to the profession and the federation. The federation, which was founded in 1963, is the biggest federally chartered professional chefs’ organization in Canada.
Besides his work at Camosun, Noussitou has been involved with fundraisers, community events, and culinary competitions, including a run as team captain of a Victoria culinary team that went to the Olympics in 1988.
“I’ve been very involved with the industry all along, in the professional side of things, and as an employee of the college I’ve been involved in the federation working on culinary issues that affect everyone across the country,” he says.
Although Noussitou now only acts as a chef occasionally for catering functions and community events, he’s been able to keep himself rooted in the work that he loves.
He admits that he does miss being a restaurant chef, but the truth of the matter is that his role as culinary arts chair at the college is more agreeable to him these days, he says.
“Yes, it’s something that’s still in my blood somehow, and I’ve had my own catering business for many years as well,” he says. “I do love it and I love serving the public and sometimes I do miss it, until you look at the time off we get and the hours at the college. This is not what the industry is about: the industry is very demanding and quite cruel sometimes in terms of working nights and holidays and weekends, so as we get older we appreciate the regular schedule that we have in the college.”
Noussitou will be back from his holidays in August to begin preparing for another crop of upstart culinary students at the Interurban campus’ Helmet Huber building starting in September.
In the meantime, he’s enjoying his holidays and basking in the honour bestowed upon him by the CCF.
It’s just a good thing his colleague convinced him to attend that national conference.
“He was very persistent, so I knew something was happening,” explains Noussitou, “but it was still a surprise when it was announced, and a great honour. It was really quite moving.”