Delt Stories

Brian Saltzman (University of Delaware, 2019) started cooking as a way to help his mom around the house when he was in middle school, but he slowly fell in love with the craft and has been cooking ever since.

“It’s a hands-on project, whether you like sports or doing DIY projects. You can zone out and live in that world,” Saltzman said. “It’s a challenge, and every time you make something, it comes out different. So repeating and learning from your past is rewarding.”

Now, Saltzman has taken to Instagram to show off his culinary skills. It has never been his goal to be famous or an influencer. “Instagram is the best way to express my passion for food, show the things that I like, regardless of who’s actually watching.”

Learning is his favorite part of working in the kitchen, being able to get ideas and inspiration from different cultures. Diving into the rich history of a dish or recipe is always essential in bringing people together.

“I love bringing people together through cooking and being able to connect with individuals through dishes they had growing up. It makes that connection even stronger,” Saltzman said. “It’s that deep dive into where certain ingredients come from, and that pushes me to try new things.”

When he goes to the grocery store, he tries to think about all the ways he can use an ingredient. “Take a can of black beans—I think about how I can use part of it for tacos and how I can make it into a chili. So just leveraging and utilizing ingredients where I can,” he said.

If he’s attempting a new recipe, Saltzman does a bit of research and then tries to find commonalities in the ingredients.

Saltzman doesn’t have a signature dish, but loves cooking with cheese and making sauces. “[In] almost all of my recipes, I usually try to find a way to include a sauce element to them.”

Cooking is purely a passion for Saltzman but he wants to connect his love of cooking with his major, marketing and advertising. He eventually wants to get into food marketing. Then he wants to potentially create a space launchpad where the restaurant, tourism and culinary students can open their own businesses in a risk-free environment.

“Culinary is a lot of in-the-classroom learning, but ideally, what people are learning in culinary [school] to one day work the line and maybe open their own business [could be] something that blends the best of culinary classes and business classes so more people on [the] culinary path know more about starting their restaurant,” Saltzman said. “Maybe my path would have been different if something like that would have been available for me.”

Until then, Saltzman continues to cook and post pictures on his Instagram while trying to provide more content to help his viewers learn tricks and tips to elevate their cooking. “If I can inspire people while doing what I love, I could not think of a better way to use my skill and platform.”