AMES, Iowa -- Not only did Madalyn Schuman create a culinary masterpiece on her first attempt, the Iowa State University student's creation has been shared with more than 400,000 people this holiday season.
Schuman, a senior culinary science major from Muscatine, completed a summer internship with August Home Publishing's Cuisine at Home magazine. From the start, Schuman knew her creative cooking skills would be put to the test. And this was a test she passed with flying colors.
"My big project was going to be developing a dish that would be served during the winter," Schuman said. "I did quite a bit of research on types of meats, complementary seasonings and sauces, and food pairings. Developing a recipe from start to finish was a new process for me."
Her creation, "Roast Pork Loin with Pineapple Raisin Sauce," is a seasoned pork loin, cooked at a high temperature and complemented with a fruit sauce. She experimented with different ways to best season the meat, proper cooking time and temperature, and appropriate flavorings for the sauce.
A previous internship with the Geneva Golf and Country Club in her hometown honed her kitchen skills, and classes at Iowa State refined her understanding of ingredient interaction and product development processes.
"My first internship was more on the kitchen side, and while I liked the work with the food, I didn't enjoy the long hours," Schuman said. "This internship with August Home really brought everything together for me, in terms of applying classroom and lab skills, using knowledge from my first internship, and then being able to use it to create a new dish."
Each day on the job, Schuman helped with testing recipes, critiquing new dishes, shopping for groceries and props and helping with photo shoots as a hand model.
"During the interview, they looked at my hands," Schuman said. "I was not prepared for that at all, but apparently, my hands were good for holding props and food. That was probably the oddest part of my experience."
Cuisine at Home, which has a circulation of 420,000 readers per issue, publishes a holiday magazine filled with recipes. Schuman's roast pork loin with pineapple raisin sauce will be featured in the holiday edition, which hit newsstands and mailboxes in November.
"As an intern, I felt like I had to go above and beyond
what was expected and make a good, lasting impression,"
Schuman said. "Working on something from scratch by myself
was frustrating at times. But, having all that effort pay off
and having my recipe published gives me a huge sense of
accomplishment."