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Everybody is a chef in now days

12K views 106 replies 24 participants last post by  spoiledbroth 
#1 ·
I think in now days with all the cookery programmes on everybody seems to think they know how to be a chef. Sometimes I have read comments on tripadviser that make me laugh.

Someone once complained that the roast meat was pre cooked.  The owner actually sent a message back stating that of course it was pre cooked as it takes hours to cook it.

I really find it quite funny that everyone seems to think they know how to run a restaurant.
 
#2 ·
It's one of the unfortunate parts of our business.  Most everyone cooks to some extent or another so many people think they can do what we do.  Add to that all the cooking shows and people often take for granted what we do, feel they can do it better, or think they know much more than they really do.
 
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#6 ·
People watch Too much television
Hey, wait a minute! I have a great idea for a new reality TV show, we'll call it "who wants to be a Chef?" See, we'll get this Chef--not just a chef-chef, but a Chef,Chef,Chef-you-know-a-real-Chef, one with full-sleeve tats and a knife made from a solid piece of unobtanium, forged by mystical dwarves on the very pinnacle of the Dutch Alps. Anyway, we get this Chef and give him/her a one year lease on a beat-up 50 seat diner and film the whole thing. If he opens on budget and can pay overhead within 3 months, we keep him, if not, we get another. If, after a year the Chef can pay himself a salary that is greater than minimum wage, we' ll sign him on for another 2 seasons.

But, being a reality show and all, we have to make it interesting, I mean, Chefs normally just cook and make a pile of money, right? Nothing interesting ever happens. But for every episode we'll throw a minimum of 3 curve balls, stuff like having the fridges break down when the health inspector comes, or "difficult" vegetarians who will only tell you what they can't have, not what they can. Oh! Oh!, wait! we can have cameos from like Jamie Oliver posing as a Groupon sales guy, convincing the Chef how selling your food at 75% below the menu price will somehow make you money, or Ramsey posing as a "professional blogger" conning the Chef to provide a couple grand worth of meals for a favourable blog. You know, stuff that never happens in real life.

Naw, the head office big shots will never go for it, it's not what the public thinks a Chef should be doing......

But in all seriousness, to answer the O.P.'s question, why do call themselves "Chef's"?

Same reason that bullies pick on little kids, same reason dogs lick their, ah, um...Private parts.

Because they can. No other reason

Look, if you want to call yourself a doctor, you better have a medical degree or a Doctorate's degree from some kind of a University.

Same goes for an engineer, a lawyer, accountant, or Architect.

Cops have to have a gun and a badge to call themselves a Cop.

Plumbers have to have a once-white van full of greasy tools and a dashboard full of invoices and Mc D's garbage or no one will take them seriously.

But you don't need anything to call yourself a Chef. Nothing. No degree, no piece of paper, no badge, no gun, just a poofy white hat.

That's why....

Now, in continental Europe, a pro-chef doesn't call themselves a "Chef", they call themselves "Cooks". A "Chef" is what you call the Boss. My cousin in Switzerland owns a autobody shop, and his employees refer him as "der Chef", same goes for a niece who's a pharmacist, her staff call the her "die Chefin".

Only in N. America......
 
#7 ·
Maybe another celbrity cameo could be the guy with a great resume who dissapears after two weeks, leaving an uncovered saturday breakfast shift with no notice. And I will personally fill the roll of the non english speaking dishwasher who still manages to argue with everyone...
 
#9 ·
Food pump I think your wrong. I think the actual chef community would stop watching funniest home videos and watch "who wants to be a chef". After a holiday weekend working 80 hrs doing 4 weddings everyday for 4 days and in the end find out that the banquette staff threw the toppers away just minutes before the guests departure and be expected to fix it.

Did I mention it was a loonng weekend? Lol
 
#10 · (Edited)
I stopped caring about how people call themselves or direct certian titles or statuses. 

I won´t work for someone who "thinks" they are a chef...

Basically i let them call themselves what they want, to me it only matters now during the rush or on the line. 

If im getting my money at the end of the month, they can call themselves "the culinary emperor". 

I like to think, "the bigger they are (or their egos are), the harder they fall". 
 
#11 ·
There are alot of "chefs" who pull recipes online... like when you walk in and have seen every dish on the menu on the front page of epicurious at some point in the last 5 years you know it's someone who quit a cushy office job to "follow their dream" or it's some unbearably young fresh out of school culinary student who thinks Culinary Arts is equivalent to Restaurant and Hotel Management.
 
#12 ·
Old Post, I know....just wanted to add:

I find it very ironic that the cooking trade has no certifications or licensing needed to go into business, as do electricians, plumbers, and hairstylists, yet Chefs have been elevated to a near godlike status, simply because they took someone else’s recipe, or execution style, or art form, tweaked it, and now called it their own.

For this, they receive money, ratings, and their own television show.

You don’t see architects with their own shows, or electricians, plumbers, or even lawyers.

(It’s probably just a matter of time though….just wait……reality television coming to your house soon.)
 
#15 ·
Personally I am not even close to a chef. I enjoy cooking that is it. but I knew a guy Right out of "le Cordon Bleu" in Orlando of all places that thought he was the "bees-knees". Every meal he made was "by the book" and you could tell the food had no 'soul' and it was made by memory and not passion.

This guy rarely tasted his food and got hired locally in Orlando, as head-chef,  by a restaurant that had JUST opened... His head got huge and the restaurant fired him. I would have considered him a line cook at best.

I'm not knocking the School, I just find that many people I have met that graduate from there have big egos, basic skills and little true soul.

I have no formal training, outside of a food prep class from high school, and many people say they prefer my "messy/rustic" foods over his "trained" approach.

All im saying is that some people that COULD label themselves as chef, probably shouldn't. 
 
#21 · (Edited)
I would like to see Flay or any of his cohorts  run a place that does 10 Bar Mitsvahs , 6 weddings every Saturday and on Sunday  10 more . Then Banquets mid week of a total of about 4000 guest every week September through June. Only one who could do it would be Chef Robert Irvine, he may not be the fanciest but he can sure pump it out.   ( I would have loved to work with him)

Chef Ed
 
#24 · (Edited by Moderator)
So... wet towel under the cutting board to stabilize the board...

I tell my workers that it belongs in the bucket when not in hand.  Wood boards may be damaged by it, and it's unsanitary according to my servsafe training. The shift before mine uses filthy wet food service cloths for it. I have no trouble with board migration and actually prefer to be able to easily slide it toward me a bit to sweep product into a pan.

My home board came with rubber disks or feet that hold it in place.

This is the only place I've worked where they follow this celebrity chef tip, so I'm wondering how many chefs are putting wet towels under their boards?
 
#25 ·
I definately do, but you can use a variety things, including plastic wrap, for the same purpose. The boards are plastic so thats not a concern. If I don't have it my board slides around like it's on ice. Also I have my board up on a hotel pan a lot of times, so of course.
But yes, clean towels, please.
 
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