“You’re a chef? Wow!!! Where’d you go to culinary school?”
This is a question that I hear almost daily: “Are you a chef?” My answer is a disappointing, “I don’t know”. Chef is a shortened form of the French, chef de cuisine (lit. “Head of the Kitchen”) with Chef being rooted in Latin, meaning Chief. Somehow it has come to be that anyone wearing a double breasted cook’s jacket or a floppy tall hat is referred to as a Chef. This bothers me.
The Chef is someone, usually a man, who hasn’t set pan to stove in years. His most important function is to remember to wear his pristine white Egyptian cotton chef’s coat with abalone buttons and ornately embroidered crest for those cognac fueled VIP schmoozing sessions. Ask a cook if he’s a chef, and he will make sure that no one else hears as he quietly answer, “Uhmm yeah.” It’s not that anyone wants to impersonate a rank they haven’t obtained. It’s just who has time to explain the entire Escoffier Kitchen Brigade system every day?
I’d also like to address the culinary school myth. Going to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America (CIA) or Le Cordon Bleu in Paris doesn’t mean anything other than you had the $95,545 (plus room and living expenses) for the nine semester CIA tuition and fees. Alright, I don’t want this to sound like a sour grapes lament. Of course I would love to go to CIA; who wouldn’t?!? My point is that right now in some high volume New York restaurant in the theater district there’s a line-dog from Oaxaca firing a perfectly seasoned côte de bœuf, turning a whole lemon herb stuffed fish, starting a saute, all the while building a beurre blanc, reducing a demi-glace and skimming a stock, all so he can send his embarrassingly small paycheck back home to his wife.
Meanwhile, some CIA graduate is accepting a position as Grand Buffet Manager for a country club that has been serving the same Canapes, Eggs Benedict, Steak Dianne, Duchesse Potatoes, and Prime Rib carving station they’ve had since 1983. All the while this crisp young fellow wants to talk to one of the Members that he heard has connections with a production company that can maybe help him shoot a pilot for a cooking show to coincide with the first publication of his cook book that he’s been writing since freshman semester up in Hyde Park. And this jerk honestly believes he deserves it, because his parents anted up for the CIA when he got thrown out of Syracuse for cheating and excessive absences.
But hey… he’s the Chef now.
Filed under: Pop-Food-Culture, Uncategorized | Tagged: chef, chef de cuisine, CIA, Culinary Institute of America, culinary school, food rant
I am a CIA Alum. I have to say that agree with the bulk of your posting, including the very last paragraph. Unfortunately, the situation you described happens. For a lot of the Alumni, it is our passion for what we do that keeps us busy and out of the lime light. A lot of people on the other hand, are looking to make a quick buck and gain some sort of fame.
Other grads have earned their fame by working the long arduous hours slaving over a hot stove to get to a point where they can work in an environment that allows them to cook what and how they want. Sometimes that means not working the line during service, but always there if needed.
Please do not judge all CIA or other culinary school grads by the actions of the few and greedy. A lot of cooks, and I say cooks, have made huge changes in the foodservice industry that very few people are even aware of. I feel that the designation chef is bestowed upon people by others who do not fully understand what a chef is. And because of that, people try to call themselves things they may not truly be. Example: in corporate America now days, it is not unusual to find a vice president of this or that, but, it’s just a title. You do not really get the VP you get a mid-level employee or manager. To get to the real VP you have to look for the Executive Vice President. It’s all about job titles these days.
I think that cooks, who are chefs, have proven themselves to their coworkers, employees and other professionals. And it is with the respect of coworkers and others that individuals are truly titled chefs.
The part that I disagree with is the role of the chef you described in you second paragraph. Yes, there are people who do exactly what you described. But, there are far more chefs that do the R&D, control costs of the establishment, HR, etc. and unfortunately do not have enough time to spend doing what they really want to do and that is to cook.
CIA Alum, if there is one thing that I perhaps should have stressed more was the line where I said, “Of course I would love to go to CIA; who wouldn’t?!?” My own culinary experience is so scattered, starting at age 15 as a dish washer/grill cook at a rural south Georgia steak house to hanging out in European kitchens trading English lessons for cooking lessons (that were more drinking lessons than cooking.).
At the end of the day, I couldn’t be more excited by the wave of Culinaria that has swept the US and England. The fact that Anthony Bourdain (also a CIA Alumni) is more famous than a lot of the crap on Mtv really makes me shiver with modern Zeitgeist.
My attack was more on culinary academia than the CIA directly. I am angry about the community college that starts a culinary arts program and hires local sludge to teach the classes just to have a culinary program. And the sea of Art Institute/Trade School/Weekend Warrior-type schools that are popping up all over the place with certificates for this and that. Anyone with a copy of Herold McGee’s “On Food and Cooking” could get a much better education on the technical, and six weeks of line work at even a mediocre restaurant can fill in the practical.
There is one point that I will not back down on though, and that is the tuition to these places. The CIA should honestly be ashamed to have a $100,000 price tag. Sure ingredients are expensive. Sure instructors want to be well paid, and sure the campus is amazing. But at the end of the day, you leave and go make $12/ hour at the Ritz or 4-Seasons, working 60+ hours per week, and end up defaulting on student loans trying to maintain a caviar and cognac lifestyle.
But again, as you so accurately pointed out, there are those who qualify for financial aid, get through the courses, work hard in an intern/extern-ship, get a descent job, pay off their debts and actually contribute to the industry. But the game is still a racket, and that is that.
I’m no kitchen expert – hence me coming to your classes – but I think you’re a chef because if Remy from Ratatouille can be a little chef and all he does is uphold traditions & beliefs, you can be a chef because you’re funny and you make food in front of people.