Apprentice chef

Hi, My name is Janet, I am currently studying Food and
Hospitality at school in South Australia, I have been set an assignment and
was wondering if you could please help me!?
>
> The topic I have to analyse is:
>
> "An apprentice chef must have enthusiasm and a capacity for hard work,
rather than food skills of a high standard."
>
> If you could send me some info, it would be greatly appreciated!

[layjo]

Well when I was an Apprentice, I belive I certainly had "enthusiasum" and the "drive" for doing hard work. I wanted to learn as much as I could, whenever I had a chance. I liked staying past my shift in order to get the experience of preping, cooking and plating of gourmet parties and banquets. As for food skills of a high standard.... When I first started I remember not having food skills of high standards, but thats because I was just beginning in my career. But as time and experience progressed when I was an Apprentice I looked foward to higher standards in cooking skills. You tend to notice what is expected by the Chef or Kitchen Supervisor with time and fill you need to improve on your skills everyday. You know how the saying goes "Practice Makes Perfect". Well one Chef told that "Perfect Practice, Makes Perfect". It got me to thinking and realizing what i needed to work on and how I should go about improving on certain task and skills. And as an apprentice it was really important (I felt and noticed)to get down the classics of each cusine I explored; there is plenty of time for creating new ideas in the future. When you are young you learn your "ABC's and 123's", and later in your career you can take these numbers and letters and create all different types of combinations. Hope any of this helps.

Layjo

[This message has been edited by layjo (edited 10-29-2000).]

[cookM]

Hi Janet,
A lot of the chefs I've worked with liked having new people who didn't know much about the biz because they could train them the way they liked. Enthusiasm and drive made it better cause then you want to share the knowledge you have with the newbie. Ie, there was this woman working for free at one of the places I work at. She was from Japan and wanted very badly to be a cook. She told me that it's hard for women to be cooks in her country and wanted to stay here in able to learn. Well, let me tell you, we all wanted to help her out cause she was so into it!!! I once came back from a Farmers' Market and pulled out all the produce I had just so she could taste it all.

Usually (and I'm not saying this happens all the time) when someone comes in with all their knowledge, they can have pre-conceived notions and have an attitude. You can't learn anything if you think you know everything already.

So, there's my two cents. Hope that helped you.

cookM