What To Call Myself

A Chef runs one or more kitchens. It is a job title, generally for someone who can cook, but has acquired the experience to cope with

• personnel management
• inventory management
• compliance with health codes
• business finance
• business law
• accounting
• equipment breakdowns and malfunctions
• vendor relationships
• customer relationships

along with the necessary culinary management, i.e. cooking. menus, etc.

You said you will be getting a business degree, presumably a B.A.?

You are a college graduate, period.

With your lack of experience, I respectfully disagree that you are qualified to be a sous chef, let alone a line cook. Education alone does not qualify anyone for a management position above that of trainee level, let alone a technical vocation such as cooking, IMHO.

It is nice that your friends call you chef. It is also good that you are uncomfortable with the title, you have not earned it yet!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CandyCLC 

i just took my last cooking class yesterday, my program is at a community college and I will be getting a business degree in food service management/hospitality with specialization in culinary artistry. The program wasn't the greatest thanks to college polotics and I can't really go to a better school. I have good basics and fundamentals and could probably get a job as a sous easily. But here is the thing...I am not really a culinary student anymore I am not cooking only have to take math and speech and a couple random business classes for my degree. I am not certified through the ACF yet either. I don't have experience working in a real restaurant yet which is why I am struggling to call myself a chef. My career goals aren't even to really work and own a restaurant I want to work in the personal chef and maybe catering sector due to having young kids and also a side business as a food photographer. Slaving on the line isn't really something I can do for some years.

 

Is it right to call myself a chef if I am not certified nor working as a chef? EVERYONE I know refers to me as chef but I don't know I feel like I haven't earned it enough even though I was a very very hard working student and was top of my class. Thoughts?

 

(this could just be a case of my low self confidence, i struggle believing I can do it when challenged with something but I always make it in the end, I know I am a chef but my lack of experience makes me feel like I admit that out loud yet...)

Pete hit the nail on the head, You have no experience working in a restaurant,  you would be hard pressed to find a line cook position.

You may start out as a prep cook or in the pantry and work from there.

A sous chef has to be the best line cook in the kitchen, that requires putting in years of ball busting time on the line. That's not something you earn in "chef school".
Go get your feet wet, then worry about a title after you get a few years in. 
 

I wrote a wall of text explaining why you aren't a chef, wouldn't cut it as a sous-chef and how you wouldn't even get a job as a line cook.

I then deleted it because it would just be another meaningless wall-of-text from some guy out there in cyber space.

My best advice to you is to ask to stage for 9 consecutive nights at the best restaurant in town in order to prove yourself and hopefully find a position at that place.  Keep trying this until a place accepts your offer.

This would be the best learning you can't ever pay for and won't ever get paid for.

Honestly.

"9 consecutive nights" ?

What? If a guy sucks after one(1) shift, he should look somewhere else. If he's good enough, he should be getting paid.

No, you are not a "Chef".  If you have graduated, you are a "culinary school graduate"

A  "sous" is the Chef's right hand man, one that s/he trusts to run the place when they are off or away.  They need to see you cook and run a place before you have an opportunity to earn this title.

Call yourself an aspiring chef or chef wannabee. or chef in progress,

A work in Progress

By my experience, it is best to be real and honest when you are looking for a job. Say that you are kin to learn. If they will need you you will get the position you can handle and go from there. You will earn your title, eventually.

I have done that two years ago. It takes a lot of experience, to be able to work on the line. I am working in a hotel kitchen and the organization there is different, than in a restaurant. Sometimes I will do soups, appetizers, maybe side dishes, or even meets, I will even do an a la Carte dish, if there is time and someone is always there to supervise me. But if the rush comes in there is no way I could handle it, without annoying everyone around me. Not to mention there is half of the dishes from the menu, I have no clue how to make.

I guess what I am trying to say is from what I have seen, there is nothing more frustrating to other chefs than people who come working in to our kitchen as "experienced" cooks and freeze, where there is a lot of work to be done.

I have worked in hotels, fine dining, pubs, bars, you name it ive done it. Going on 8 years now of getting my ass nailed, on average 60 hours a week doing anywhere between 50 to 500 covers a night, in boiling hot kitchens, learning what i can in addition to the culinary degree i obtained 6 years ago, to get to where im to today, just to be considered for my first management level job as a sous chef. If your straight out of school i agree with Pete. And if you havnt worked in a restaurant or on a line before which you say you havnt. You are in for a surprise :P, i was cooking for 2 years before doing my culinary training, i know first hand nothing you learn in school will prepare you for 25 to 40 degrees centigrade heat in a kitchen when your up to your eyeballs in prep work that needs to be done while you have 150 or more demanding customers sitting in the dining room expecting you to do 20 things at once to make sure they all have there meals within 20 minutes (depending the type of restaurant), i wish you the best in your career right now however its just getting started for you. I would say culinary school graduate.

Relax, a chef is nothing more than a chief, the one in charge, the manager.

The term, IMHO, has been corrupted to mean something different in some eyes, mostly having to do with excellence at cooking, whether savory or sweet.

For me, and I think a large number of culinary practitioners, it is simply a job title that does not necessarily relate to culinary skills. It is possible to be a chef without having exemplary culinary skills, just darned good management skills!

From Escoffier on, it simply means the one in charge of ????, much like the military uses Sergent, the more stripes, the more responsibility.

If you are in charge, you are the chef of whatever you are in charge of. IMHO.

Now, understand, that is the viewpoint of one American and may differ from our cousins across the pond, either east or west

i was told by a european chef that i had in cooking school "we are all just cooks".  the title of chef is what your peers see you as, and you have to earn this title not have it given to you because you are the only one around.  i think you should continue to work in kitchens seeing real professional chefs at work and reread you blog in one year time and see if you still want to call yourself a chef.

Well said Pete.

Instead of worrying what to call yourself, I would do some soul searching into what kind of career you want.  You say you have young kids and that working the line is really not what you want to do (for now).  Get a game plan, figure out what is good for you and your family and then go pursue it.  Once you have a plan, you can then start pulling together the old resume and pounding the pavement for that first job. 

Call yourself whatever you like.  Despite what the many professional chefs on CT say, it isn't illegal or even misleading for any cook to call herself a chef.  They and their profession deserve respect, but you don't disrespect them or it by using the word "chef" as it's commonly used. 

If you're uncomfortable calling yourself a chef, call yourself something else.  "I'm a cook" has a nice ring to it.

If you want to say, "I'm a chef, but..." and add a bunch of caveats, do that.  But I warn you, no one really cares.   

In the greater scheme of things what you call yourself matters a lot less than if you can cook pancakes. 

BDL

I am currently the Chef (by title and responsibility) at an Indian Casino.

I was recently a saute' cook, or line cook, at a fine dining establishment.

I've been a dishwasher, a prep cook, a line cook, a sous chef, an executive sous chef, an executive chef and a kitchen manager in my culinary career.

You know what I prefer to be called?

Jim.

Just Jim.