Biggest insult to a chef/cook

[panini]

Well MarkV,
I'm not sure where you are in your career but if you're a chef and blatant narcissist is the label, your world is, or going to be, full of them. I'm sometimes guilty. Maybe blatant self assurance is more appropriate when it comes to passion. i don't know pan

doc, sure!

[MarkV]

Please humor me and allow me to give you an example.

When asked by my head chef to come up with the amuse bouche one evening I prepared a tomato & zuchini gratin. He criticized my recipe on numerous counts, the details of which I don't remember now. Despite his condemnation he told me to go ahead and use them. Midway through the dinner rush the head waiter stated that the customers were loving the hors d'oeuvres. My head chef beamed and thanked him and never gave me credit or a pat on the back of any kind.

So my work is crap until it's a hit and then he takes all the credit.

Now I ask you, is that not irritating?

But I never said a word and still followed all his orders.

Mark

[higjse]

I get a little peeved when one of the busboys or dumbass seasonal servers tells me to "be careful with that knife"

or when I hear "ewww I hate fish" or "specials? I have to remember specials? I hate specials!!"

[fairfieldchef]

The number one insult for me: "Did you really make that?"

Number two: "Is this fresh!"

I only wish one day I could reply to both without fear of losing my job!

[SushiGaijin]

when i was in retail fish, i used to get the "is that fresh?" question a half dozen times a day. My response was always, "no, thats from two weeks ago, but we have a lot of it and i need to get rid of it before it smells any worse." after delivering THAT deadpan, looking them square in the eye, they would figure out that, yes, it was indeed fresh. sometimes a bit of humor diffuses that situation, and that particular guest will NEVER ask that question again.

Erik.

Here are some observations of just the back of the house !

One thing that I'll never understand is how a person can sleep at night after taking all the credit for someone else's work. When in charge I constantly get applauded for functions or dishes as though I was in the back all by my self. I think this is one of the first concepts anyone entering management for the first time must learn and that is to create an atmosphere where you live and die as a "TEAM" only. Those are usually the first words out of my mouth when receiving a compliment is to include all the efforts of my staff. One of the biggest interview killers for me is when the boss never uses the word "We" and all I here is "I" and "ME"....

The second thing that really bothers me is when you see two people standing there just bullsh%^&*(it's about ten min before service) and the third cook is over on the side running around with a look of Oh no I'm not gonna make it look of fear in his or her eyes and gets no help ....I see this all the time and this keeps going back to team again and again .

And one other thing that turns me into a raving maniacal sociopath is when someone walks up to a pot or something that I've been working on for a considerable amount of time and indiscriminately just adds ingredients or spices to that pot without any discussion with the person whose project it is and not knowing what's already in there ??? "Too many cooks spoil the broth"

The biggest faux pa of this In my memory was when a cook walked up to a 50 gallon steam kettle of consomme that had been going for over an hour an a half and proceeded to stir the soup with a large wooden paddle subsequently destroying the raft and ruining the soup .. Good intentions but needless to say this cook is now deceased . .......juuuuuust kidding!

One more good one that always gets me is when a cook or manager walks up to me and says oh hay can you write down the recipe for that...I do believe in sharing but to automatically expect it just won't happen unless you have my respect as an employee. If I see that you are a hard worker and put in a genuine effort and I see that you will benefit I have no problem. It may be a recipe that took me ten years to develop and someone just expects me to just hand it over .....well not today.....
These incidents may not seem like insults immediately but to someone who works very hard and has a lot of passion and really cares about the finished product they sure can be ......

[kuan]

Have you ever had managers who think they know more about cooking than you? THAT, is annoying.

Ah wait, now I know the reason behind our screwed up measuring system, so people can't bring in a recipe and scale it up for us!

[gus20]

I'm not a chef, just a cook helper probably.

But my family are who make me feel worst. I cooked a cebiche in a different way asked by my parents. It didnt taste bad, just a little diffrent.

So my brother said in front of the guests and family: I dont like it,,,,,,and he repeated 3 times,,,,, and after that he said: I prefer the cebiche that people sell over the road in the corner. That really made me very very angry, I couldnt be more patient and i told him: if u dont like it u dont have to eat it, but be polite during the lunch.

regards

Gus

[Andrew563]

This never fails to irritate me everytime. I will have a guest ask me if a dish is good. I always feel like responding wiht a "no , it is utter cr__. That is why I made it"

[Suzanne]

Originally Posted by deltadoc

Does this mean that someone can really be a chef but doesn't work in a professional kitchen/restaurant, etc.?

doc

Getting a little off-topic with this, but . . . If by "professional kitchen" you mean one that puts out food for people to eat directly (either on premises or to take out to eat elsewhere, as is or doing some cooking themselves) -- that covers a lot of territory (institutions, manufacturers, caterers, prepared foods for stores, among others) -- even so I have to say yes. Someone new here just asked about research chefs/culinologists. They need the food knowledge that chefs in a "professional kitchen" need, and other skills and knowledge as well. I would even consider people who develop recipes for publications to be chefs.

But to get back on topic: the worst offenses in my book have already been mentioned:

1. Salting without first tasting
2. Telling how it "should be done" differently
3. Refusing to taste something because you "don't like it" even though you've never had it.

[castironchef]

Originally Posted by Suzanne

• Salting without first tasting
• Telling how it "should be done" differently
• Refusing to taste something because you "don't like it" even though you've never had it.

LOL!!

You just described my frustrations each time I cook for my in-laws. Grrrrrr!

[AprilB]

Culinary art and food is my passion.

When I was working for the Resort near Yellowstone, I would get glowing compliments from everyone in the kitchen about my pastries and bakery items. A lot of my items wouldn't make it to the floor for dinner because of the Line Cooks and the wait staff was constantly bugging me to do taste tests.

The F&B manager, who I had replaced because they "promoted" her, was rarely around during my work week BUT on the days she was somehow she FORGOT that I had been single-handedly running the bakery, including making up to 7 pans of homemade bread every day, and seemed to think I didn't have a clue and needed to micro-manage me. I got complaints about "working too much", like if I didn't clock out EXACTLY at my pre-determined end of work day hour!

For instance, she determined that we needed another p/t bakery 'help' for two days a week. I was just fine without her. Personally, the p/t help was nice BUT she couldn't follow a recipe to save her life and I kept getting the heat from this same F&B "manager" for her screw-ups. I spent MORE hours fixing her mistakes and I got heat when I was trying to FIX them. Like a pan of over-proofed hard rolls for a function that pretty much deflated when you touched them. She complained to ME about waste when I re-proofed another pan to replace them! I got fed up and just stopped trying to fix her problems and bad products went out to the floor. THEN she had the nerve to tell me that the p/t worker and I were no different. Oh, THERE'S good management skills right there!

At that point she had hired someone to do the cakes and function pastries during the really slow winter season that had "Restaurant Management" experience. I had been hired on for the wedding cakes and catering. This was after using all of my ideas for functions during the summer when I was the ONLY BAKER THERE most of the time.

I will not be used. That's when I quit.

AAAARGH!
We need an icon with a mallet beating something up!

Your post AprilB made me think of something else that I think a lot of us have either experienced or heard about . When you go to your next interview and they ask why you left your previous employer and you're honest with them and tell them you and the manager had some professional differences why is it that I get the impression that more times than not the interviewer thinks that you had the problem and not the manager.

Most interviewers have to keep in mind that you just can't automatically assume that all managers are competent and on the up n'up... They're just like any other profession ....there are good ones and bad ones....and sometimes people can be unlucky and get stuck with a bridge troll with the IQ of a carrot for a boss !

These people may be part of a good ol' boy network or are still in the position for sentimental reasons(tight with the boss)or they're just the only one left standing with half a brain or they don't really do anything and are just trying to justify their existence or they have the psychological and people skills of a fence post....

Message to all managers: When you micromanage you send a message to all your help that you don't trust them to accomplish anything on their own ...this breeds disloyalty and helps kill morale. Treat your staff like the employees you want them to become ! If you stretch them,more times than not they will reward you !

I think this ranting is a by-product of a severe caffeine deficiency......goin fer coffee !!!!

[Jolly Roger]

I read through the availble responses and I concure with them all. However, I don't believe anyone mentioned the following:
1. Customers coming in five minutes before closing the f' ing kitchen.
2. A server "instructing" me in the "culinary" preferences of his/her customer. We have a menu...order from it!
3. When a chef from another restaurant walks in and sits at my bar ordering drinks still wearing his f'ing chef coat. Ever heard of street clothes? Or are you too fat for them anymore?
4. People in the buisness that still have no problem undertipping my staff.
5. Chefs that don't recognize their cooks. You got cook that can spin pies better than you? That can basically cook you under the table? B*tches recognize!

[Aurora]

I resent chefs and cooks who salt everything heavily in the cooking process claiming that it must be salted to taste good. There are plenty of other flavors and ways to make a dish taste good without resorting to salt before even trying the dish. Salt can always be added, it cannot be taken out of a dish.