Have a Taste for Culinary Careers?

23064608Every weekend, I reach for a spoon – a big one – and dig into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream. Delectable chocolate chunks. Crunchy walnuts mixed with bananas. It’s one of my favorite indulgences. But that doesn’t mean I want to be a primal ice cream therapist.

Haven’t heard of it? Neither had I until I saw Delish’s list of the 10 coolest food jobs (no pun intended)!

Check out this description:

Ben & Jerry’s Primal ice cream therapist (yes, that’s his real title!), Peter Lind, consumes four to five pints of ice cream in an average week (roughly 15 to 25 flavors per day). The purpose of this madness? To assure Ben & Jerry’s delivers the best-tasting product possible. Peter and his team dream up, then sample and adjust flavors over and over until they are completely satisfied. “You could make a chipotle ice cream, but exactly how hot should it be?” That’s the kind of creamy conundrum the gurus must figure out.

Crave adventure? Become a chocolate explorer:

Biting into a bar of chocolate, it’s hard to comprehend the journey those cocoa beans travel to get to your taste buds. Meet Ray Major, Scharffen Berger’s resident “cacao hunter.” It’s his job to source the best possible cacao for the company’s artisan chocolates. His work has taken him around the world to Nicaragua, Belgium, Ghana, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala … the list goes on. On these adventures, Major and his team visit plantations to evaluate the trees, discuss the crops, sample the pulp and study the quality of beans.

Food lovers also may enjoy careers as celeb chef assistants, restaurant publicists, gourmet food buyers or beekeepers – just to name a few. And getting paid for what you love to do? That’s icing on the cake.