Why did you choose the cooking life?

[David Hensley]

Hello! I'm David, and I'm relatively new to the forums here. I've read an almost overwhelming amount of threads here, and I have to admit, I'm completely hooked on this place! All of you seem to truly love cooking, and food, in their many forms.

Personally, I'm a professional. I graduated from culinary school in '01, after several years already in restaurants, mostly fast food, and pizza. My first true restaurant job was a Bar & Grill in Baton rouge LA, which I still remember fondly, if not favorably. It has been quite the journey, from there to here, with its abundance of ups and downs. I love it, even for my yearly pronouncements that I'm going to walk away, and get a job in another field. HA! She always calls me back, that Siren of foodservice....I love her so...

Why do you do it? What Siren do you hear, when you see fresh meat, or perfectly grown vegetables?

Why do the chaos and the fire attract us?

I always enjoy hearing the stories of others, especially my fellow cooks in the world!

Why do we do it?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

It's a deceptively difficult question, David - I think a lot of us are going to have a hard time putting it into words adequate to express the obsession.

Rather than a chef, I'm a baker, a profession that has been in my family for more than 500 years. So partly, I'm in it for the tradition - the family seems to produce only one baker/patissiere per generation, and it certainly looks like I'm it for mine - I don't want to break that chain. For me, there's an almost irresistible call to the oven when I see sacks of flour and sugar - I can't help but want to make something from it. There is something very satisfying in turning what looks insignificant into something spectacular.

Since what I do is primarily catering bakery, I get to do something slightly different every single day (I've held down office jobs, and the monotony of it makes me want to shoot myself) and on special occasions I get to play with my food in a more literal sense in terms of the creation of unique cake decorations in pastillage and whatnot - there are very few professions where that's not only possible but encouraged! This is, I think, a big part of why I keep at it. And even though I know exactly what chemical reactions are going on when I set bread to bake, it still astonishes and pleases me greatly to watch it spring and brown in the oven...

[Plantes Vertes]

I'm not obsessed with cooking, but I definitely like it a lot. I think it's because cooking involves so many skills and pleasures; not many other activities demand such varied aptitudes and satisfy such diverse desires. It seems like cooking needs precision, panache, timing, taste, imagination, generosity, dedication to practice, mechanical ability, curiosity, some willingness to err, aesthetic judgement, creativity, good memory, synthetic thinking, attention, a convivial nature, some sort of joie de vivre... that means that cooking can be a very fulfilling activity, but as well as that, the rewards are very good; you get to eat them and share them with people, please others and from time to time drink nice wine with them. It's just very gratifying.

Maybe there's some patriotism or cultural envy; maybe there's also a wish to care for others, memories of family, nostalgia, a way of expressing love.

In terms of a professional kitchen you can add a sense of the quest for excellence, camaraderie and bravura, professional pride, daring and exhilarating pressure.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Plantes Vertes (log)

[Twyst]

I worked FoH jobs all through college and grad school, got out into the professional world and decided I hated it. I also didn't want to spend the rest of my life as a bartender but knew I wanted to do something in the service industry and had really fallen in love with cooking, so culinary school seemed like a natural choice. The feeling after a busy service when everything went flawlessly is a high you just can't get anywhere else. The immediate satisfaction of making something and having someone eat it and be amazed is also extremely gratifying.

Edited September 7, 2013 by Twyst (log)

[David Hensley]

After some careful thought on the matter, and an honest conference with a longtime workmate, I realize that I'm just one of those strange people who probably wouldn't have ever gone in another direction. I've been cooking since I was seven, really. Where other kids would wake up and watch Sesame Street, I would sleep through it, because I knew that Julia Child would be on, right after, followed by Jacques Pepin, neither of which I would dare to miss! All through middle and high school, I would rush home from school, just so I didn't miss Great Chefs of the World, or The Frugal Gourmet.

I can't honestly say that I come from a family of great cooks, because frankly, I come from a long line of people who prefer their meats boiled, and their vegetables fried. In almost 15 years of cooking, I've yet to prepare a meal for them that really garnered any compliments. It seems that I'm always just too high-falutin for their tastes lol.

Thanks for the replies, keep them coming!

[quiet1]

After some careful thought on the matter, and an honest conference with a longtime workmate, I realize that I'm just one of those strange people who probably wouldn't have ever gone in another direction. I've been cooking since I was seven, really. Where other kids would wake up and watch Sesame Street, I would sleep through it, because I knew that Julia Child would be on, right after, followed by Jacques Pepin, neither of which I would dare to miss! All through middle and high school, I would rush home from school, just so I didn't miss Great Chefs of the World, or The Frugal Gourmet.

I can't honestly say that I come from a family of great cooks, because frankly, I come from a long line of people who prefer their meats boiled, and their vegetables fried. In almost 15 years of cooking, I've yet to prepare a meal for them that really garnered any compliments. It seems that I'm always just too high-falutin for their tastes lol.

Thanks for the replies, keep them coming!

I'm not in the food industry (considered it, but I've had inflammatory arthritis since I was 10 so I decided I wouldn't realistically be able to do it physically) but I had to comment anyway because I WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE! I feel marginally less strange now.

I learned so much from Jacques Pepin's series where he covered a lot of technique stuff rather than just making recipes. (I forget which one - I had the VHS set of it, too.) There used to be a CIA show, too - I remember learning how to carve a turkey from watching a CIA instructor do it.

(Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of people who actually work in the industry.)

[Lindsey]

Well I was plunged into catering head first so to speak! I married a Publican, we took on a very run down pub and the only way up was food. I had to learn everything on the run, the one thing that got me through many mistakes was a great gift from my Mother, knowing what good food should taste like. Luckily, for me, this was the early 70's so competition was not huge so was able to build up a great customer base fairly quickly. We went on to do this in a good few Public Houses and the sense of achievement is addictive, as is returning and seeing my menus still in tact and pulling in crowds.

I am very happy to do just 2 days a week now, no nights or holidays, in a small beach cafe in Scotland - but, oh I miss the buzz and wish all the young chefs joy in their work!

[David Hensley]

I could never do just 2 day a week lol. This damnable business is my life, sadly.

I have food in my veins...and mind, which is worse, I believe...

[Lindsey]

I used to think like that David, I even thought at one stage if I were to win the lottery I would still do the same job. But, age has cured me of that LOL I just find it too hard now physically and many years standing have taken a toll on my knees. I was working in the days before cushioned soles!! Gawd that makes me sound soooo old

[Porthos]

I make my living in the electronics engineering area. I have physical limitations that would prevent me from working the line even if I wanted to change careers. But I LOVE to cook and have been cooking for 47 years.

On a volunteer basis each spring and fall on the weekends my DW and I lead a team of volunteers doing what I consider to be essentially a catering gig: we feed about 70 renaissance re-enactors a feast (on-stage in view of the visitors) at lunchtime every Saturday and Sunday that the 2 faires we do are open. I have a garage full of cooking equipment from an 8-burner grill down to Cambro 6-pans and enough gadgets to outfit 2 or 3 kitchens. My Christmas wish list generally has new pans or whatever on it. I could no more give up this intense hobby level of cooking that I think David could give up being a professional. What drives me is knowing that the food we put out more that just sustains people - it pleases them. That is why I get far too little sleep and in the fall drive late into the Friday nights to arrive at the faire site - to get the personal satisfaction of seeing people enjoy the food.

If this post doesn't belong here the moderators are free to remove it but I wanted to share why I chose the non-professional cooking life.

[Tri2Cook]

In all honesty, I probably chose it because I needed a job. I've always been interested cooking and, without meaning to sound immodest, pretty good at it. I even seriously considered it as a career path during college but talked myself out of it. Many years later, I moved to where I live now doing contract work for my former line of work with the intention of leaving when it was done. I decided I liked it here and didn't leave but there were no further opportunities in my line of work in this area. Someone I know worked in a small restaurant that needed a cook. I needed a job. I just assumed if I was a good cook at home, I could be a good cook in a restaurant. I found out that's not automatically true but it can become true if you want it to bad enough. I managed to pull it off well enough to keep the job and set my mind to learning as quickly as possible. Anyway, that's it. My reasons for getting into it as a career path weren't all that noble. The reason I continue to do after all these years is that it didn't take me long to become attached to it. I honestly think it's what I should have been doing all along...

[liuzhou]

I was just hungry.

My mother was an awful cook. Still is. And she will be one of the first to admit it. She was one of that generation who grew up under rationing in wartime Britain and never really had any food to learn cooking with. No one was going to potentially waste food by little a little girl experiment.

I guess I was about 16 when I found myself a girlfriend whose parents, although not master chefs (they ran a small grocery chain), took food a bit more seriously. I remember her father teaching me how to make a simple plain omelette. I remember my girlfriend laughing - father's pride in his omelette method was a family joke.

But to me it was an absolute revelation. I had never eaten an omelette in my life till then. I thought eggs were boiled - preferable for a very long time - or fried until rubbery. It seemed miraculous to me that there were other ways.

And that was the key moment which opened a door to a life long interest. I have never cooked professionally and never will, but the love and curiosity re food kicked off there.

I haven't seen that girlfriend for about 40 years. I still use her father's method for every omelette I ever cook and remember her fondly.

[David Hensley]

Seriously guys, these stories are fantastic! Professional or not, I respect anyone who cooks out of love for the craft!

[cakewalk]

This is a nice thread, thanks for starting it, I enjoy reading the responses.

(I don't cook, I bake. Very unprofessionally, I might add. I think I like it for the same reason I've always liked magic acts.)

[David Hensley]

You're quite welcome, Cakewalk. Trust me when I tell you that you're not alone in that.

Keep baking, my friend, and as UN-professionally as you can. The greatest thing about cooking at home, is that even your worst screwups can usually be eaten with pleasure...

[quiet1]

If we're going to let non-pros comment, then I shall add more. As mentioned, I watched a LOT of cooking shows as a kid. In addition, I was allowed to experiment in the kitchen (when I was 4 my parents set up a cabinet in the kitchen to be basically my cabinet, and stored stuff in it so I could make myself a snack, etc. No sharp knives or heat at that age, but I could make some sandwiches, that sort of thing.) At some point along in there my mom took a Chinese cooking class, and while I didn't go to the class with her, often my dad and I would go to pick her up and if they weren't quite done then the teacher was happy for me to come in and sit and watch as they finished up, and then we'd cook the dishes at home as a family later, with everyone having some kind of role in the preparation. (I think some types of cooking particularly lend themselves to being a group effort because there's so much that needs to be prepared ahead of time. You can have one person slicing the meat, another person handling vegetables, when I was young I always got do to any pre-mixing of sauce ingredients, etc.)

I think those things really helped get me to a place mentally where food wasn't something scary. Added to that I grew up going out to dinner fairly often to a wide variety of restaurants (including local higher end ones, though nothing as top of the line as what you might find somewhere like NYC) and so ate a wide variety of food, and was encouraged to try things but not forced to eat it all if I didn't like it, and it made me curious about food and adventurous about trying different things. As a result, cooking has always just been a way for me to exercise my creativity. It's quite rewarding to start out with a bunch of ingredients and end up with something that tastes how you imagined it would, or to rescue something from disaster.

I also really enjoy the time management aspect that you can get with bigger or more complicated meals - I'm one of the few people I know in real life who actually enjoys hosting big family meals like Thanksgiving or Christmas, because I like the challenge of figuring out what to do and when each step needs to be done and how to make sure everything happens on time.

Plus it's satisfying to ultimately end up serving something that people enjoy. My late husband had difficulty swallowing some textures, but really enjoyed food (which is good as he was underweight and constantly being told to try to bulk up) and it was always a good feeling to find a new dish or figure out how to remake an old favorite in a way that he could eat comfortably. (In that respect I don't mind allowing for dietary restrictions even when doing a big meal, as long as I'm informed in advance. My SIL was vegetarian and I quite enjoyed the challenge of making sure there was a dish that was suitable for her to have as a main course, but that also worked for everyone else as a side dish - I dislike the approach of giving one person at the table a special plate of food that has nothing to do with what everyone else is eating. Part of dinner conversation in my house is often talking about the food, and how can you participate if you're not eating any of the same things?)

I do wish I could have tried cooking professionally, but as I said earlier, I figured when I was younger that there was just no way my body would be able to handle the type of stress that comes from cooking professionally in most environments. I'd end up with a prescription painkiller problem because I needed so much to function day to day. Occasionally now I consider going to a local place to take some classes for fun as much as anything else. (Well, and some food safety classes so I can make sure I don't make anyone sick. )

[Michael S.]

I was just hungry.

My mother was an awful cook. Still is. And she will be one of the first to admit it.

This. I got sick of eating charcoal for dinner (mine would constantly burn everything) so started cooking for myself about 15 & really started getting into it a few years later. I'm in Uni at the moment, but if my career gets too boring then I'm definitely going to dive into a kitchen head first.

[cakewalk]

I also really enjoy the time management aspect that you can get with bigger or more complicated meals - I'm one of the few people I know in real life who actually enjoys hosting big family meals like Thanksgiving or Christmas, because I like the challenge of figuring out what to do and when each step needs to be done and how to make sure everything happens on time.

Lovely post, thank you. The issue of time management really caught my eye, it is one of my biggest downfalls. And to think that someone actually enjoys this aspect! I think it could make a good topic on its own (unless there is one already? I haven't been able to find it.) Connected to this, there is the issue of impatience. When baking, impatience leads to most of my mess-ups. It happens less frequently now, but it's still there.

[pastameshugana]

For me it was a move to Asia.

I discovered ridiculously cheap produce, and had a little more time on my hands than normal, and just started experimenting!

We had a housekeeper that would occasionally cook, and I was amazed at the level of work put into simple Indian preparations, and I began to learn techniques and study to get better.

Incidentally or not, that is when I discovered egullet. From then till now it's been almost a decade, and I'm still loving the process of learning.

[Dakki]

I'm one of the few people I know in real life who actually enjoys hosting big family meals like Thanksgiving or Christmas, because I like the challenge of figuring out what to do and when each step needs to be done and how to make sure everything happens on time.

I can relate to a lot of the posts here -particularly Porthos', and I think us engineering types are overrepresented in this community- but quiet1 really hit the nail on the head for me. I'm the eldest son of a pretty traditional Mexican family, and there's a whole lot of expectations with regards to hosting family gatherings on the holidays and so on that I enjoy fulfilling in my own morbid way.

[Norm Matthews]

Right after I graduated, I started teaching in a small town that had no fast food places-except Dairy Queen. They were all sit down family-owned local restaurants. Microwaves were not yet home devices and frozen dinners had to be thawed for hours before baked in the oven. I finally decided i could probably learn to cook meals as well or better than any restaurant, save a little money, get more variety and do it and faster than any frozen dinner. I picked up a copy of James Beard's Cookbook and really enjoyed reading him and cooking for myself. In high school I had earned my spending money by working at a drugstore soda fountain and everyone said I was good at it. I got compliments on my cooking too. TV's Julia Child helped me learn a lot and mom was always a phone call away.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Norm Matthews (log)