Jonas M Luster

Judging from the material I am getting as externs and lines from even the "A-list" culinary schools, knife skills and basic garde manger and prep aren't that much of a focus, anymore. I meet externs who can, on end, belabor the various Middle Eastern dishes they learned, but have a hard time doing a champignon tourné or even a simple "hey, battonette me those taters over there, willya". Butchering a chicken? Done maybe three times before coming to me and getting into the weeds having to do twenty before shift. Companies like Sysco love that. I get the pitch every week, how much labor I could save if I went for the pre-cut breasts and - because now I don't have carcasses anymore - the nicely pre-packaged 3 gallon jugs of "luxury chicken stock". And, let's face it, when even my competitor with the Michelin star down the street buys his stock pre-made, why should I stick with it? Sure, I will, I like mine a little different than the packaged stuff, but if it's good enough for the Red Book...

Spanish might be more important than French to work your way through a NYC restaurant At least the basics of both languages help tremendously, though, to find your place in the brigade. The one construct I wish I'd understood better was "connerie" - I'll leave it up to you to Google, though.

I respectfully disagree. I am the product of the German apprenticeship system, and if anything the difference between those without a degree and those with one, given the same time in the business (three year apprenticeship, six year journeymanship, one year master prep, master chef degree), are in the goals either candidate has. If I am looking at someone who spent three years working in the same kitchen, working their way up from prep to line and, after three years, convinced a panel of seasoned and grumpy chefs to give them a journeyman certification, I know I am looking at someone who has dedication and drive for the industry. That is, I agree, a far cry from the 600 credit hour evening class culinary schools in this country, but given the same amount of industry experience (note, I don't count being in school as experience), I prefer the culinary graduate if all else is equal.

One thing to keep in mind ... regardless whether you go to c-school or not, having actual kitchen experience is the only way to get into kitchens. As a matter of principle, I (and many other chefs I know) do not hire pure c-school graduates, not because I am a snob, but because anything that is important in day-to-day service is not taught in schools. Timeliness, dependability, team-work, situational awareness, multitasking, all those are scratched at best. And, let's face it, try as they might, no cooking school can emulate the heat of a dinner rush. Even if you make it into a kitchen after c-school, chances are you'll be precisely where you'd have been if you hadn't spent those $30k - on the prep line or on amuse or something around there. What c-schools can, and will, teach you are techniques and an understanding of your product and its preparation. Things a very interested line can pick up in a restaurant, but also things that often fall by the wayside if you're just tossed into a busy kitchen. My suggestion would be to spend four weeks externing or staging with a chef before you decide if you want to go to school. You _can_ make do without school, but you cannot make do if the kitchen life and kitchen work doesn't do it for you. If that part works, if you find yourself curious for more, and if you can see yourself being an underpaid, overworked, back-of-the-house for a long time ... by all means, go and get a degree.

^^^ this. Chef is a job function, not a title. If anything, Master Chef (the European one, not the ACF one) could come close to being a title, but I am not sure how to work that into an appellation. Chef describes someone who, inside a kitchen, directs a number of subordinates in the preparation of food for service. The word "chef" derives from the Latin "caput", "head". I blame FoodTV for diluting the term to the point of irecognition. Food Network actually goes so far to call bona-fide, hard-working, chefs "amateur chefs" to differentiate them from "real" chefs, which - in FN lingo - means "actors on TV cooking things". In the same vein, people like Karine Bakhoum, a woman who moved from fashion to food PR, never worked a day in a kitchen, is called "chef" in any and all FNTV press releases. Personally, my cooks call me by my name. Every once in a while, especially when we get stages and externs from cooking schools in, someone calls me "chef", as does our FoH when they refer to me, simply to build the mystique and rapport with the diners. For lack of a name, outsiders may ask for the "chef" when wanting to speak to the person in charge of the Back of the House, but again, that's a job function, not a title. Ever since after my apprenticeship I can't recall having called anyone "chef", either. And, alas, I used to work for some of those people that are now being referred to exclusively as "Chef X". Trust me, outside of FNTV and book tours, only bosses I wouldn't want to work for insist on the "chef" title.