Chefs often question, warn, or even outright discourage
individuals from seeking to join their ranks. I believe this
emanates from the people frustrated with their dead-end,
cubicle-trapped jobs, plopped on their Sunday couches watching
Emeril “bam” his way through a couple dishes, and saying to
themselves: “I could do that.” These amateur cooks naively
believe that there is a correlation between preparing homemade
or TV meals and the professional kitchen. Worse yet, they may
have stars in their eyes. My friend Claudia who teaches culinary
journalism, often comments about how the pupils in her class
“all think they’re gonna be the next Ruth Reichl.”
I don’t think it’s these individuals’ dreams per se that ruffle
the feathers of culinary professionals. Rather, I believe it is
their lack of appreciation for the incredible amount of
difficulty that lies ahead to even come within sight, if ever,
of such aspirations. Even people with no goals of stardom, who
just wish to cook professionally, may lack an appreciation for
the disparity between their home kitchen and the real world.
Network and Web
I am not here to discourage
anybody. I am simply going to give you the naked truth. You
decide what to do with it. Forget being a celebrity chef for the
moment. If you just simply aspire to be a professional chef,
expect years of working 50+ hours a week, nights, weekends and
holidays, for limited pay, in high stress situations.
New Users
Still not discouraged? OK, let’s start at the beginning. Should
you attend culinary school? Well, it’s not absolutely necessary.
Experience is the ultimate teacher. But education coupled with
experience is even better. But here’s another point of
contention with professional chefs. They abhor people fresh out
of school who think they know it all. Learning about a dish and
making it once or twice in school is nothing compared to the
person who’s done it 400 times. Although there’s a cerebral
component, learning how to cook requires the acquisition of
numerous physical skills. These skills can only be successfully
achieved from repeatedly performing them. Schooling will give
you a good platform from which to begin, and make you more
hirable. But it is only the start.
Next, you won’t go from school to behind the line making
entrees. Oh no. You will do more than your share of “scut work”
first. Forget your homemade meatloaf and potatoes. Think
standing on your feet for hours on end filling raviolis,
cleaning artichokes, peeling boxes of asparagus, gutting 50
lobsters, etc., and being expected to perform these monotonous,
mechanistic chores with assembly line speed and accuracy.
Setup and Deployment
Next you’ll probably move up to the garde manger, (gahrd
mahn-ZHAY), i.e., composing appetizers, soups, salads, shrimp
cocktails and other cold preparations. How long you remain here
depends on the restaurant and your skills. Eventually, if all
goes well, you will be groomed for working the line, i.e.,
cooking the main items. Some restaurants divvy up the line
positions by the type of cooking, (the sauté cook, the grill
cook, etc.), or by the type of food, (the meat cook, the fish
cook, etc.) Even though being a line cook is more prestigious,
the hours remain grueling and you are under even more pressure
to get the food out. Line cooks can work non-stop for hours
during the height of service with no chance for even a bathroom
break.
If you’re good you’ll eventually become a sous chef. This is
the second in command, right under the executive chef. The hours
are still long, you’ll still sweat your you-know-what off
working the line, and now you have the added responsibility of
policing everyone else in the kitchen. Of course this position
brings more prestige and money.
Performance and Maintenance
A sous chef’s ultimate goal is to become an executive chef.
Hard work, better than average ability, and sometimes a little
bit of luck are all needed to reach that plateau. Sometimes the
executive chef is also the owner, the ultimate goal in chefdom:
owning your own restaurant. But always remember, no matter where
you are on the totem pole in the restaurant business, it is
never a nine to five proposition. It is your life.
Security and Administration
Of course there are other culinary occupations. There are
cooking school teachers, food stylists, caterers, and restaurant
consultants to name a few. But inevitably, these people have
spent years paying their dues in front of hot stoves when
everybody else was out having fun or being with their family. Or
you could become, HA, a food writer. You probably have a better
chance of ending up on the Food Network than being able to
support yourself, (let alone a family), by food writing alone.
At the risk of sounding discouraging, the stars in people’s eyes
are ultimately the result of being beat over the head with
reality.
