Home Cook vs. Professional Chef

[Malawry]

On the other hand, try finding micro greens for salads and garnishes or edible organic flowers as a home cook. I live in a major metropolitan area (the same one Steve lives in) and I wish anybody seeking such goods plenty of luck. Chefs in my area can and do easily obtain such foods, locally farmed at that. And yes I regularly visit farm markets and so on, I'm not just looking at a standard grocery store.

I think the approach of a professional cook is different from the approach of an amateur cook. Professional cooks have to create dishes that hold without deterioration for hours, requiring minimal fuss for last minute finishing. A home cook can prepare everything a la minute, including sauces and the whole bit. But a professional cook has more stuff on hand at any given time to play with, which is one of the more fun aspects of professional cooking imo. Most home cooks can't afford to have a huge variety of perishable goods available at any given moment.

I also echo everything else that's been said in this thread, from my limited experience. I am straddling the line between professional and home cook right now, and it's given me a chance to see both worlds on a daily basis.

[Fat Guy]

Aside from space and therefore some equipment, what is the major difference between a professional chef and a serious home cook?

Since access to commercial quality ingredients is now possible, I don't believe that's a major factor anymore.

Let's remember that in any food service operation serving more than six tables a night the chef doesn't do much, if any, cooking. The chef is the leader of a brigade of sous-chefs and cooks. This is a function that is completely foreign to the home cook. I'm not sure I know a single home cook who could walk into a restaurant even during a slow lunch service and act as expediter without the line grinding to a halt. Then there's ordering ingredients from purveyors or supervising the sous-chefs who place those orders; hiring staff; training the dining room staff on the cuisine; and all the other things a chef needs to do. So that's the big difference between chefs and cooks: Chefs aren't really cooks.

Now of course any good chef does know how to cook. So if you want to compare the cooking skills of a chef to the cooking skills of a home cook, that's possible as long as you bear in mind that you're talking about comparing a home cook's entire culinary skill set to a minor part of a chef's skill set.

I'm what you'd call a serious home cook. I can cook individual dishes as well as the chefs at New York City's second-tier restaurants -- in fact I have beaten some of them in formal competition. Andy Lynes, our UK coordinator, has been wildly successful in competition cooking. I'm sure either one of us could on a good day cook you a meal that rocks harder than what you'd get at some pretty good restaurants. But at least speaking for myself, I'm not a chef. My skill set is incomplete. Maybe, with a little training, I could do a line cook's job on one of the easier stations in a non-busy restaurant. But that's about it.

Now there's also the question of the difference between home and restaurant cuisine. The ingredients issue is only one difference, which sometimes cuts in favor of home cooking and sometimes favors restaurant cuisine. It depends a lot on where you are and what you're trying to accomplish. But one area where restaurants have it all over home cooks is in the amount of advance preparation they typically do. Restaurants -- assuming they rise above a certain level -- have multiple stocks available at all times, they have various purees and sauce components and all that stuff around, and they have the economies of scale to make it worthwhile to do big sheet pans of oven-dried tomatoes and other little flourishes that make a big difference on the plate. As a home cook you just wouldn't do all that stuff if you were cooking for six people, unless you were going to spend two whole days preparing the meal. Restaurant kitchens also have, for the most part, much more serious equipment than home kitchens -- more powerful burners, broilers, mixers, convection ovens, woks, rotisseries, deep fat fryers, ventilation, etc., and it's not just a question of space but also of money, knowledge, and expectations.

[Andy Lynes]

I'd say creativity, presentation and consistency in that sequence.

The last, I'd agree with. The first two items in your list I would not. It is quite easy for the experienced home cook to be creative and to achieve a very good standard of presentation. When I'm in the mood, I can create rather lovely looking plates, and that is more a matter of leaving things out and cutting down on portion size than having numerous oils, powders and assorted garnishes to hand (although that can work as well of course).

But it's the time, effort and expense involved that, when you stop to think about it, really makes it not worthwhile trying to emulate what a restaurant chef can do in your own home.

Consistency is a problem for me. I really have to be in the right mood to cook something really nice, and I'm not everyday. A chef has to have sufficient skills so that mood or inclination afffects the quality of the finished product a little as possible.

Basildog - would you agree with that last point?

[Simon Majumdar]

The real difference for me as a ( very ) regular eater out and a home cook of OK standards is between simplicity and complexity. I am keeping ethnic food out of this as I am more than competent when it comes to cooking Indian food to a high level, but that is a different discipline and also something I have lived with for all of my 38 yrs

When I cook at home I aim to use the very best ingredients I can buy. I then proceed to do very little to them as quite frankly I would fuck it up.

When I go out however, I want the chef to do something that astonishes or at least something that I could not do. This does includes presentation, variety of ingredients ( not quality - I take that as a given as someone mentioned, most of us have access to excellent supplies these days ) and skill in preparation. If, as is so often the case, any of these are missing, I feel gypped as the chances are I could have got close to it at home.

S

[oraklet]

my kitchen is rather small, and i sometimes feel cramped in it. but i think that professionals will often have much less working space. i've seen a pro working in a kitchen with only 1.5 meter of counter space, and yet producing a wonderful five course meal. and was he fast!

[Steve Klc]

Malawry--just to use your two examples, edible flowers are routinely available in Dean & Deluca in DC and always available by mail order sources anyway. I've seen them at Whole Foods. I was in Philadelphia the other weekend and 7 or 8 different varieties of edible flowers were packaged and available from produce vendors in the Reading Terminal Market. I was very impressed. So maybe the larger factors are willingness to pay and awareness of sources.

Microgreens--would that they be so prized--I have not spotted them around town as you point out either. But how many professional chefs and high end restaurants use them around town? 20? 40? Admittedly a micro-percentage of all pro cooks and restaurants in our area. The vast majority of working pros do not use them or cannot afford to use them.

On your other points, I'd gently disagree with your perspectives. Yes perishability is an issue--but Myth #1 is it isn't like restaurants have fully stocked walkins at their disposal to such a degree that home cooks can't even relate to let alone approach. It's just not that romantic. Flats of the same quality stuff get delivered--say mediocre Asian pears--as what you find in Whole Foods stores and as a home cook you have the option to drive to the Asian market where flats of several different species of Asian pears are piled sky high--and you can choose your own perfumed, ripe fruit if you want. You simply don't have that option at most restaurants. I used to have the worst fruit delivered to me at a two-star restaurant in NYC sometimes and I've seen very average fruit delivered to very fine restaurants here in DC--if I wanted better I had to go out and buy it myself. You accept or reject and you make due--usually you accept, since you probably need the fruit or you can't put out your dessert special that night. Why do you think Wingding buys fruit at the Greenmarket just like home cooks do? Though it is unrealistic and unlikely, a home cook could get the very same box of fresh lemon verbena flown in for $20 as a restaurant chef has to in our city. Malawry--you know we can buy fresher eggs, duck eggs even, as we have together than 98.5% of the restaurants, chefs and cooking schools in our area--most of whom get their boxed flats of eggs from the same commercial sources.

A few other statements of yours pique my interest: "Most home cooks can't afford to have a huge variety of perishable goods available at any given moment." Again, I disagree. I'm not sure what perishable goods you're talking about, but--home cooks can easily have a small container of Lewes Dairy heavy cream, little tubs of fromage blanc or marscapone, tiny portions of fantastic goat cheeses, a single bell pepper, a clump of parsley, herbs, Pelugra butter, whatever. They can buy fresh dates or gooseberries just like the pros and have little garlic bulbs and baby ginger just as easily as the pros. If you cook at home you'll go through these in a week and you can be even more efficient about it and just buy a half pint at a time. I'm hard-pressed to name a single perishable good that isn't readily available to me as a home cook doing my weekly shopping, except for the quaint microgreens and corn shoots and lemon verbena examples. I'm sure there may be other examples of specialty items, which have to be sourced or purchased in volume from professional channels, but the differences surely are insignificant.

Possible myth #2--it isn't like restaurants have such vast stores of perishable ingredients on hand that they aren't specifically planning to use, to turn over, quickly--ordering is tight and specific much more often than not. Stores of things just aren't lying around. You're not going to find a lemongrass satlk just sitiing in a walkin if it isn't in a dish on the menu. It's a myth to think pros have little bounteous stocks of perishables at their disposal to create and combine spontaneously. What they have on hand is the same gourmet stuff you and I, as home cooks, can easily have in our cupboards or freezers if we so choose--sea salt, harissa, arborio, dried peppers, pine nuts, panko crumbs, truffle oil, ice cubes of pesto, etc. Restaurants get their flat of soft shell crabs delivered daily just as a home cook would have to shop for their crabs or bag of mussels daily at dozens of different locations around town.

If I were a home cook in Iowa I'd be at the same logistical disadvantage as a professional.

Possible myth #3--"Professional cooks have to create dishes that hold without deterioration for hours, requiring minimal fuss for last minute finishing." Again, not really. Much of higher end modern professional cooking these days is a la minute--all fuss at the last minute--the prep--washing, cutting, portioning is done ahead of course--but if you're on the line or watch what's going on in open kitchens these days it's "usually" some variation of flash sauteed, seared or deep fried raw main ingredient--crab cake, shrimp, salmon, foie gras, etc.--with oils, vinegars, reductions, fruit added to the pan, plated on top of just tossed greens or greens wilted in the pan or re-warmed flash-poached veggies, slaw, herbs sprinkled on, maybe another drizzle of a quickly and easily made sauce and served. This really has been streamlined and there is alot less "holding" going on than one might think--unless you're talking hotels and banquets and foodservice. But if you were it would support my contention that home cooks could expect to achieve brighter fresher cleaner entrees a la minute for their family than a chef under these banquet conditions where 1,000 plates had to go out quickly.

Shaw goes on to say "As a home cook you just wouldn't do all that stuff if you were cooking for six people, unless you were going to spend two whole days preparing the meal." And he's right--but as a home cook you could make other time-saving choices--which reflect the realities of your situation--and choose NOT to do time-consuming purees, stocks, etc.--just as restaurant chefs make choices and streamline things to make their jobs easier and more efficient. A home chef can reduce balsamic or Pedro Ximenez just as easily as Ferran Adria does at El Bulli or Gian Piero does at the Elysium, and choose not to cream Robuchon's famous potatoes just as these chefs have chosen not to.

The best book for home cooks that I've seen recently, which gets these points, is "A New Way of Cook" by Sally Schneider. She clearly has been paying attention to what pros have been doing and readers can pick and choose among many simple quick ways to boost flavor, which aren't too different from what pros are doing these days. Simon--have you cooked anything from this book? It seems up your alley and might dampen your enthusiasm for eating out.

[Fat Guy]

Special K, I agree that on the whole the clever home cook can get the same or better ingredients than any restaurant other than Ducasse, Jean Georges, Trotter's, etc. Most restaurants are locked into a menu that has to be replicated day in day out. Although they can add the occasional market-based special, they mostly have to order stuff that is consistently very good in bulk -- which rules out the occasionally excellent items that the home cook can buy as a one shot deal in small hand-picked quantity. Restaurants are also notorious for holding ingredients until the last possible moment of usability. That's true even at the better places.

The one area where I've found myself unable to acquire restaurant-quality ingredients without asking for a favor from someone in the business is in the seafood realm. I simply can't get a good piece of cod anywhere in New York City. If I want it, I have to make arrangements that go beyond the abilities of normal home cooks -- in other words I have to call my friend Matt Seeber and have him call EMS and ask for a whole day boat cod to be dropped off at some high-volume establishment at five in the morning, and then we have to butcher it ourselves risking life and limb in the process and then I have to figure out what to do with 15 pounds of cod. I'm not sure I've ever seen non-farmed salmon (at least not where I've believed the claim) at a fish store in New York -- I have to call my friend Mark Rossum in Vancouver and have him FedEx me a fish from Ocean Beauty's processing operation in Seattle if I want line-caught Oregon Coho or anything on that level. Those are pretty extreme steps that I can only justify taking once a year or so. I think if you talk to seafood purveyors most of them will tell you that all the best fish of certain types goes to the restaurants and that the retail shops get mostly crap. There are exceptions, of course: A retail consumer can get excellent live lobster, and there are some locally caught products available such as at the Union Square Greenmarket, but all of that is the exception.

[chopjwu12]

I agree with the fat guy on the seafood. I find it hard enough for our restaurant to get great quality so i dont even want to think about what the home cook ends up with. Yeah some stuff is good but the rest is shit. Keller himself sais hes lucky for have the fish monger that he does. he gets the best and consistantly. Sometimes i dont think people realize how hard that is even for restaurants.

A side note on microgreens. Do you realize how freaken easy it is to grow your own. I grew mine all year. I probably attained what was equilavent to 4 boxes of them things this year. For a restaurant that could range from 15-30 bucks a box. i spent about 10 bucks for the whole thing. I mean all you need is a small box, some dirt, and seeds. Then something to pick them with. Its that easy.

[Basildog]

Fat Guy, would it not be easier to just ask for 4 portions of cod from the high volume restaurant? Or am i missing something here?

[Fat Guy]

Sure, if you have friends in the restaurant business or you're a good customer somewhere a restaurant will likely sell you anything you want -- though I don't know of any restaurant that portions its cod the way I want it for my purposes. Some of the best home cooks I know do a lot of their shopping that way, but it's always a question of how often and how much you want to impose on the people who can do you favors. I don't feel bad just picking up an extra fish that came in with a restaurant's regular order, but I start to hesitate when I'm swiping some poor line cook's mise-en-place.

[Steve Klc]

Steve and David--all valid assessments re: highest quality seafood. However, below the highest level restaurants--the very top percentage--consider the 95% of the rest of foodservice where most professional chefs work--just how good do you think seafood is? How much frozen calamari or New Zealand mussels or orange roughy is out there and utilized at the pro level? And is that level demonstrably better than what is available retail in a place like Citarella or in a market or in an upmarket supermarket like a Wegmans--where you could readily get cleaned fresh squid, bags of farmed but live mussels or somewhat fresh fish? Is the level of cod at a retail fish market significantly different than the level of cod available to most restaurants, restaurants below the elite level, in that given city or area?

The situation may be improving. Case in point Shaw--last time I was in the Princeton Wegmans I saw several varieties of labelled fresh "wild" or "line-caught" Salmon which were flown in--on top of their normal number of different farm-raised options. I do trust Wegmans enough not to bullshit their customers. If they were going to hedge or mislead I'd suggest they never would have introduced their own line of irradiated ground beef.

Home cooks have to buy these items to support a system of providers willing to go this extra length in more areas of the country, but even better levels of quality may be breaking out all over.

[Fat Guy]

I agree with all that, though I'd add that what I was really talking about was wild salmon that has never been frozen. I'm not sure what Wegman's does but I'm pretty sure most of the salmon I've seen labeled wild in upscale markets has been FAS Troll Coho or King -- or it has been a lie (I've seen a couple of instances where the seasons didn't even square with what was supposedly being offered). This dishonesty can take place at the distributor level -- I'm sure there are retailers offering what they genuinely believe is fresh wild salmon even though it isn't. I actually think the farmed salmon sold at Costco is better than much of the FAS wild stuff, but then I have no objection in principle to aquaculture or to freezing if it works -- I only care about what tastes best.

[Steve Klc]

Ahh, wild salmon that has never been frozen. I knew there had to be a catch. I can't recall whether Wegmans printed "fresh" and didn't think enough to ask whether it was "previously frozen." Next time I will.

[Suzanne F]

Steve S: What's your opinion of the Wild Edibles counter at Grand Central?

[Fat Guy]

AWESOME! It comes very close to capturing restaurant-quality stuff on a daily basis, though it's crazy expensive and selection is quite limited. Also when Eric from EMS was running the fish place in Chelsea market you could sometimes get restaurant-quality stuff.

[rich]

Wild Edibles is one of the places where resturant quality product is always available. The scallops and four-to-a-pound South American prawns are outstanding.

I've also had luck going to the meat market district and obtaining some top quality beef/pork/lamb of various cuts. It's a matter of getting to know the "right" individuals and having some cash.

If you get to know the people at D'artagan, you can get commercial grade game and sometimes, just sometimes, top notch fois gras.

Produce is relatively easy, but I totally agree with FG - fish is the most difficult. And Yes, the Costco salmon is terrific - especially good when making cured salmon (it has the necessary thickness.)

[chopjwu12]

It all boils down to this everyone here watches the foodnetwprk for the most part. Everyone knows the show follow that food. Well they did an episode with cod. By the time the cod got to the market where the lady bought it it was like 6 or 7 days old!!!!! That fish had been dead for 6 or 7 days. Thats no good. Now can you imagine if a qulity restaurant was getting that fish. They can sit on it for up to 4 days or so depending on how sales go. So a quality restaurant cant afford to get that 6 or 7 day old piece of cod. They need to get the 2 day old cod or even better.