The use of the title Chef - Page 2

this is an interesting question.  I've been trained in Australia, but have worked in Europe.  Here, in Aus the technicality seems that anyone trained, is a chef.  Talented people who can cook, but are otherwise untrained, are cooks.

I disagree with this, as I also disagree with the title 'chef' being applied only to the head dude.  

I think that the title chef  should be applied to anyone capable of doing the job, qualified or not.

Cooking is a desperately unregulated industry, and while this is so, then I believe that the ancient applications of titles can be applied.  

If a dude could make horseshoes, knives and swords, he was a blacksmith.  There wasn't a college to go to, or a wall to hang a certificate on, much less a printer to print the certificate, or anyone literate to read the damned thing.

foodpump-not to take away from food and chefs, but GRETZKY was the greatest NHL player not a NHL player

the title chef is overused and overrated these days. anyone with a culinary degree considers themselves chef without ever having to work and bust their balls in a real kitchen. i always have and always will consider myself a cook no matter what position i hold in the almighty kitchen because what i do is cook. if you are the the chef and don't cook, you're a douche. get back to basics and earn the respect of your staff.

cascadecatering-i agree with you 100%

If a dude could make horseshoes, knives and swords, he was a blacksmith.....

If you're going to use silly analogies you ought to compare apples and apples.

First off, you're making a comparison between how things are done now, compared to how they were done in past centuries. Back then we had an apprentice system. Today we have schools that serve that function. Is one better than the other? Depondent sayeth not.

More to the point, given the guild system, a dude could make horshoes, knives, etc. would, indeed, by a blacksmith (well, actually, not, but that's a digression). But he would not be a Master Smith, which, within that guild, would be comparable to the generic term Chef.

Merely being able to use the tools of the trade does not qualify one to be the top dog. If that were so, there are an awful lot of home cooks who could take over as chefs in major restaurants.

.....to anyone capable of doing the job, qualified or not.
 

Uh, ummm, you want to explain this. Isn't somebody capable of doing the job qualified by definition?

Chef defined is Chief, not best cook or anything else. I define it as the orchestra leader who writes the music, publishes it, and has the rest of the orchestra copy and produce it to the audience. Orchestra leader need not know how to play the clarinet does't matter. He is responsible for how the clarinet is played as part of  the total sound.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cascadecatering 

If a dude could make horseshoes, knives and swords, he was a blacksmith.  There wasn't a college to go to, or a wall to hang a certificate on, much less a printer to print the certificate, or anyone literate to read the damned thing.

Actually yes there was, and it was much worse than going to chef school.  You had to be an apprentice for years before you were considered a blacksmith, and in the old days, anyone who was still in business was a blacksmith, else they'd be out of business.

And even then you'd only be a journeyman smith, the next step after apprentice. Then, after many years, and after being judged by a jury of your peers, you could become a master.

The word "masterpiece" comes from the object produced by a potential master as his finest work, used to achieve his master's status.

While we tend to use the word "blacksmith" to describe anyone who forged metal, such was not the case. There were numerous subdivisions within that catch-all phrase, many of which has their own guilds. For instance, those involved with making and shaping horseshoes were (and are) farriers, not blacksmiths. And those making knives and swords were, generically, bladesmiths, with swordsmiths a subdivision of that.

Here in the U.S., where the guild system never took hold, a blacksmith was a jack of all trades. But the fact is, virtually every farm and ranch had a forge, and much of that work was done by the owner or a farmhand.

i know lowly prep cooks and culinary students who label themselves as "Chef"

usually when people call me "Chef", I say I'm just a cook. i call my Chef-Instructors by "Chef.." and that is a sign of respect first and foremost. its more easily defined here as they are my superiors and i am learning from them, but i don't know if they ever were head of a kitchen or if they can even cook me a meal that i'd enjoy.

even if you consider "Chef" to be head of a kitchen... where do you draw the line? if i open a restaurant and run the kitchen, that makes me "Chef", right? the problem is I did not get there based on my skills, but because I had money or could get a loan. say the restaurant goes bankrupt because I am so incompetent... and I never do anything food related again. Is it ok for me to have "Chef Huy" on my tombstone when I die?

there is no real answer. to get the cool title of doctor... you go to school, do internship, and pass a test to get certified... well we can get certified too through ACF. thankfully it is not required to work because it is a major hassle, but no one can dispute your use of the title "Chef" at that point. should we do a poll to see how many "Chef's" here are certified through ACF? lol.

i'm fine without it as long as i can cook. call me "Chef" if you like, but i am just a cook.

something i wrote on the subject recently elsewhere, nothing profound, just a riff or two from a culinary student...

My teachers in lab classes are called Chef. When addressing them in class, my sous chef (which changes almost daily depending on the class) is called Chef. Whoever is running the show in any kitchen I step into is called Chef.

In my fundamentals class I was taught that you aren’t a chef until another chef or someone who actually knows better, calls you Chef. I would define the qualification as anyone capable of successfully running a real kitchen. Does this mean the caterer who never ran a kitchen but serves 300 people fantastic food every night isn’t a chef? Nope. Not to me anyway.

As an outsider, I always admired the term and somewhat militaristic use of the word Chef in the commercial kitchen. It suggests some sense of order, something I find comforting in the world of Liberal Arts majors who are simultaneously educated to be the modern Thomas Jefferson of our times – prepared for any possibility and with the hopes of contributing to any given discipline they turn a hand to – and yet totally bleeping useless when it comes to anything that requires a little effort, let alone a little common sense. I saw this kind of thing back in my youth when I spent well over a decade learning music in a similarly militaristic fashion that – while filled with all manner of problems – was extremely effective and provided the student with the opportunity to learn, practice and master while also providing inspiration for wanting to do so, and in great measure. It's like the word seargent, or sifu, or master. It speaks of a quiet resolve and the mastery that comes with it. It isn't bandied about loosely. It can be inspiring to those chef is responsible for.

And like the gourmand... the people who speak it and understand it's meaning are just as much a part of its understanding, while many of them might aspire and yet never reach that goal themselves.

Moving along, on the issue of gender in the kitchen, I think I speak for many when I say that the word Chef is thankfully gender neutral and really helps males and females cohabitate the kitchen peacefully, especially where women who came through the industry in its most chauvinistic form (see: we’re close to finally changing that, but "not quite there") and thus have a massive chip on their shoulder, especially for that one guy that wanders up and calls her ma’am.

One of my classmates ran into this recently when he casually referred to Chef as “ma’am” in class while fumbling for paper to write on, not realizing at that moment that he might as well have stood up and pointed to Chef saying, “Female! I have a question…” He had meant to be respectful, he just wasn’t thinking about it before the words came out of his mouth and sure enough Chef dressed him down in front of the whole class almost before he finished saying the first syllable of sorry, “Chef… you will call me Chef.” And power to her, while my colleague certainly never intended any offense, the reality is if that was any of our male chefs standing there teaching our purchasing lecture class, he would have said Chef, not sir. I get it, and I think everyone else in class that day did too - foremost among us being my friend who made the error.

One of the running themes among Chefs here in school is that as a culinary student, you do not go out and print business cards that say Chef on them. People do, or they get ChefGomez@gmail.com email addresses, or have some kind of license plate holder on their car that suggests they are a professional chef. But they’re not supposed to, and if you present yourself as a chef when you haven’t even worked in a professional kitchen, then you are just begging not to get hired – while it may delight your family and friends.

A fellow student here recently told me a story of how his Chef (he works part time at a top Golf Resort in the area) will start off new hires in his kitchen by asking them what title they want in the kitchen – when they’ve made it and gotten all they can out of working in his kitchen, what title do they want when it’s all said and done? The correct answer is none. At least that was the upshot of what the chef was really looking for: do you spend ridiculous hours earning next to nothing just so you can have a title? Not in Chef’s opinion. And that makes a lot of sense to me. Back in the heady days of the apex of my design career, I remember how my business partners fought it out about what title went to whom, while I personally didn’t give a crap – I was going to determine what the graphics department did or did not do in my company and that was all that mattered to me. Not being called Creative Director, which is one of those end-game titles a lot of young designers ultimately would aim for. The point being: when you finally don’t really care anymore about titles and are instead only caring about the overall function of something like a kitchen, or like a graphic design firm: only then have you probably become one.

It’s very Zen, and very intuitive to me at my age, but it’s clearly still a mystery to many of my 18 year old class mates.

interesting idea about being a chef once someone who knows better calls you a chef... but how do you know they aren't just trying to be nice? i had a guy who worked years in fine dining restaurants call me "chef" after he found out i was going to culinary school... i said thanks, but i'm just a cook. my chef-instructors also have called me "chef" and again i don't feel it was proper, but you don't correct the chef. granted i'm a great cook and am almost as old as my chef-instructors, but i'm new to this career...

I'm fairly new to this business as well and one thing that I learned very early on is that cooking in a restaurant is very different than cooking at home and while someone may be an accomplished home cook, there are times when that does not transition well into the professional kitchen.  The speed and focus has to be there and some people just don't have it.  I had someone quit today who is a good home cook but just could not keep up on the line and everyone on the line could see that this person was not going to be staying with us. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeniek 

Ray you are right this business is hands on.  I'm sure a fancy piece of paper goes far to impress but when it comes down to it the individual's ability to perform and the quality of the food they send out is much more important. 

Agreed!! to some degree.  Chef is in my humble opinion first and foremost a cook.  This is just a small portion of chefdom. 

Okay so the "responsibilities" section of your resume include.... staffing, training, scheduling, menu development/implementation, food cost prediction/ analysis, labor cost prediction/analysis, maintenance and control of predefined food and labor percentages, daily supervision...... yada yada yada etc etc etc seriously for pages of what chefdom is.  

If you do not learn each and every day you tie that apron around your waist you are not chef.

If you can't cook you are not chef.

If you can cook like a god and can not train someone to reproduce the exact product hundreds of times over without you glaring over their shoulder you are not chef.

If you can not control, supervise, cajole, befriend, command a group of degenerate, money hungry, workaholic, alcoholic/drug abusing individuals you are not chef.

If you are not an Ahole you are not chef.

If your staff doesn't love/trust/call you for bail/ ask you to lie to their wives/ cry to you when their wives leave them then you are not chef

If your staff can not decide whether they LOVE or  HATE or FEAR you then you are not chef.

If you are not a problem solver you are not chef.  seriously today my first day back after a long weekend off(1.5 days the first time off in 27 days) and I have 8 lunch cooks jumping down my damn throat before I can even make an effen espresso "Chef this, Chef that, Chef my check, chef my schedule, chef the salad guy, chef the night crew, chef the dishwasher is broken, chef the fish isn't here yet, chef..." I swear it is never ending...but WAIT  that is not all now the F&B DIR hits you with "Chef we need to talk numbers, you're on budget but I think you can lower it....but don't go too low corporate will hold us to it, lets talk new menu ideas, lets talk, about happy hour specials, lets talk introducing this and that, and ohhh by the way the CEO is in town tomorrow he will expect to spend a day with you.  But WAIT you walk out of the office and the restaurant GM askes "chef do you have today's specials ready?" 

AND now it is 10 am..  if you are not sitting in your office smiling drinking espresso thinking I have a crazy a$$ day ahead me thinking 

I love what i do

Then you are not chef!

"Chef" is earned, it is power and control of a lot of money that belongs to someone else (unless you are an owner/chef then I commend you because it takes serious huevous to drop your own cash into this business). 

That is a rant this is a rave but that is the honest truth.  You wanted it...  effen embrace it

I like Left4breads response, but I'm really getting a kick out of ChefSeanVincent's. What a hoot! I have a running joke with some of my suppliers about the term chef as they have told me about accounts where the person they deal with insists on being called Chef So-and-so. Why would a supplier call you Chef? You're not their boss. So they make a big deal out of doing it to me because they know it annoys me. I have a strong kitchen crew, so on weekends they cook and I float around doing whatever needs to be done whether it's clearing tables, helping the bartender, hauling ice, pitching dishes or plating. Sometimes people ask me if I'm the hostess.When asked, I refer to myself as executive chef. It's pretentious, but it impresses people that I'm actually out there talking with them. They feel special. (I know, dumb.) I am the general manager but I still work on the line and run the kitchen. We had some quality issues when I first took over management of the place, and using the term "chef" helped elevate us in the public's eye. We are once again considered one of the top restaurants in our area. The "chef" buzz helped bring back customers we had lost. Also, we learned the hard way that using the term "manager" can open you up to law suits. We had an employee file a basically fictitious harrassment suit. They claimed they had reported an incident to a manager and that it wasn't addressed. If I'm an executive chef instead of a manager, there's technically no one they can point the finger at. There was another thread somewhat like this where someone asked what we thought defined a chef. My answer then, and I still stand by it, is a chef is the person who takes as much care with a grilled cheese sandwich as they do fois gras with shaved truffles. Both are equally important to the person eating it and deserve the same amount of attention. I have known "chefs" that people raved about who wouldn't even make a grilled cheese because they felt it was beneath them. That's the kind of person I don't consider a chef. It doesn't matter what they know because they don't get it anyway.

Cooks cook.

Chefs are cooks that manage cooks.

That said, the modern corporate "kitchen manager" is not a Chef.

The term is used way too freely, and I personally blame the Food Network.

edit: I have to tale offense to this;

"If you are not an Ahole you are not chef."

Absolutely untrue. I'm sick of ***holes that think that they have carte blanche to act the way they do. There is no need to be an ***hole to manage cooks, it's a tired, cliched stereotype.

Weeeelll... I dunno about that.

I prefer to think of myself as a "passive a-hole".  That is, I'm generally a mild-mannered guy until provoked.

Take for instance the other day:

New sales rep with a pastry purveyor I don't usually deal with comes a knocking at my door and offers me decent prices on couverture.  Claims the prices are stable for the next few months.  So I order 100 kg in, two  weeks later I order in another 10 cases, just about  to sign off on the invoice when I notice the prices have changed, to the tune of almost 15%.  I call the guy up and ask him what's going on.

"uhhh,.... well Head office in Europe has set new prices"

"Know why I'm telling you B.S. to your face with that statement?"

"Hey, I can't set prices if Headoff..."

"Because the production date and expiry date of last week's shipment and this shipment match"

"So?"

"So it's the same efffen inventory, both deliveries came off of the same effen skid in your warehouse, screw Head office.  You give me the same price as last delivery or I'll send the whole thing back.

He didn't, and I did.  Passive a-hole.

Last year I had this prep cook, things going well until one day the guy just doesn't show up.  One of the waitresses remarks that she met the guy couple of nights ago at a party and he claimed to have found a new job at a place down the street.  I call the owner of the  place up and confirm that my ex-prep guy is working there.  I ask the owner to tell my ex-prep that it is common courtesy to,  A) quit at your old job first before starting a new one, and B), not to come around for his cheque, I'll mail it.  I've also been known to mail invoices to no-show new cooks, charge 'em $50 for wasting my time and another $50 for lying to my face.  Of course none of them have paid up, but that's not the point, I'm just a passive a-hole, I guess.

But the one guy who will swear in court that I'm a bone-fide a-hole is my ex- landlord.  That was about 10 years ago, and I was one year away from my lease expiring on a 2,000 sq ft cafe.  Landlord insisted that he had to raise rent by 40%, but there was two things he didn't know.  The first was that every year my catering and wholesale sales grew, to the point where they now far exceeded my cafe sales, and the second was that in my lease all fixtures and chattels belonged to me.  So I decided to sell the place.

Landlord would not agree to any of the 4 prospective owners I brought him, then he shoves a envelope over, tells me it's the deal of the century, and he'll buy the place from me--just one condition:  If I got a lawyer to read the deal, it was off.

Them's fighting words...

So I found a new place and then proceeded to strip down the old place. Fixtures and chattels, that meant the walk-in, the sinks, all equipment, the fire wall, the fire supression system, hood, roof mounted exhaust fans and make-up air system, heck, even the grease trap. When I left it, it could have been an insurance office.

As luck would have it, hand-over date was April 1st, and I got a nasty phone call from him on that fateful day, threatening all kinds of legal action, sheriffs, and bailbondsmen.  But that was ten years ago and I still haven't recieved any legal action from him yet.

I'm just a passive a-hole, I guess......