Germany

FHS Oral History Project – Alex Erdmann

Alex Erdmann was born on August 26th, 1969, in Thuringia, East Germany. Alex recollected his experience growing up in East Germany, from the Soviet influence to the difficulty of seeing family that lived across the Berlin Wall in West Germany. Alex joined the East German military to professionalize as a chef, which remained one of the few ways to practice culinary arts then. Interestingly, the end of Alex’s military service coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and he recounted a particular emotional memory about living through that event. Alex worked as a chef in several places across Europe before arriving in the United States in 1998. He deepened his professional career once he stayed in the US by building four culinary art schools nationwide, consulting for several food companies, and even leading a project to improve hospital food in Arkansas. Given such comprehensive professional experience, Alex compared the similarities and differences between the culinary arts landscape in Europe, New Jersey, Michigan, and Orlando. Alex moved to Orlando in 2018 to create the Walt Disney World Center for Culinary Arts and Hospitality for Valencia College’s downtown campus, and he thoroughly discussed this experience and why it proves important for him and Orlando's tourist industry. Lastly, he shared his broader observations on living in Orlando as a German businessman, particularly how the city has changed culturally and from a culinary perspective and how the city might change in the next twenty years.

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