Becoming a chef: The long hard road
Today’s media can stage-manage just about any job to appear glamorous. Take for example: a chef in a restaurant. By showing an overhyped celebrity chef, suspend an ommlette in midair with the flick of the wrist, before making it land back in the pan (like magic), it can cause many impressionable people to rush to enroll in a culinary school – imagining that being a chef is akin to being a rock star.
First of all, culinary school applicants have got to remember that what they see of a chef’s life on reality TV shows is a distortion of what the work is like in real life. A chef’s life isn’t easy. The saying, “Anyone who works as a chef does not have a life” has a ring of truth. It can involve standing for long hard hours without regular off days, rarely able to call in sick even with cuts, burns or other injuries, high stress levels and an unhealthy way of life. When you work 15 hours daily, the last thing you want to do is hit the gym. Worst of all, this industry generally doesn’t pay well or sufficiently compensate what those who work in the kitchen have to endure.
As in any career there are many challenges and although these are some of the issues chefs may have to confront on a regular basis, it is still a great job if you’re passionate about it and are willing to put up with harsher conditions than others. There is no doubt that the culinary profession has undergone significant changes – but not to the extent that the day-to-day activities of a chef has changed much. A strong commitment to the craft is necessary to remain in the culinary profession regardless of what ever initial motivation drove one to it.
How does one choose the best road to becoming a good chef? There are myriad avenues available to you. Although everyone would agree that education is valuable, opinions may be divided on how to get it for the greatest value. While formal education isn’t required to become a chef, the specialised knowledge and skills learned during professional cookery courses can serve aspiring chefs. However, culinary schools come with price tags – especially the private schools at the top, where a semester would cost an arm and a leg.
One can also become a successful chef without going to culinary school. There is no special degree or certification that makes someone a chef. The designation is earned through hard work, passion and experience. Restaurants regularly face a high turnover rate, so there’s always an opportunity to join, learn and grow.
Successful chefs such as Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blumenthal, and Wolfgang Puck to name a few - didn’t attend culinary school. A lot of them started with a traditional upward trajectory of working from the bottom as a trainee or apprentice, and then after reaching the top, working alongside renowned chefs. They were careful in choosing to work at places that gave them prestige when climbing to the top, whilst learning specialised skills in such places.
Bottom-line is that chefs do need an education - but not necessarily all in the same way. They may get it in a two / four-year school or on- the- job.
As a chef, your office is your kitchen and your business is the restaurant. The good thing to remember is that as a chef one need not confine oneself to working in a restaurant – one can create one’s own identity, whatever one does.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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