Culinary Schools

[Jinmyo]

You're a CIA operative, licensed for wet work with primal cuts and such. What's your opinion of culinary education?

[bourdain]

A solid culinary education is a tremendous advantage--particularly since the schools have gotten so much better. You learn basic skills, history, chemistry of food, a common language and terminology that will be very very useful later on--and you hopefully develop connections which will prove useful when looking for a stage later in life. But a degree is nowehere near enough. Real world dishwashing experience BEFORE even bothering to apply to school--and real experience in a high volume place--where you learn to move, to prioritize, to set up meez--and where you find out whether or not you even REALLY want to be in the business--is is invaluable and even necessary. I aslo recommend that (unlike myself) immediately upon leaving school, graduates work for free--or near free for the best possible kitchen they can beg, plead or harangue their way into. This sort of experience is what changes one's whole trajectory, sets standards and plumps resumes, allowing one to move into the big leagues and stay there later. Can you do completely without school? Sure. It's done all the time. But it's a hell of a lot harder--and the opportunities fewer. Just look and see how many Mexican chefs of French restaurants there are (in spite of the fact that Mexicans are hugely represented as cooks in fine restaurants) and you'll see what I mean. There's a glass ceiling--above which it's very hard to move--and ambitious cooks can use every advantage they can get. Cooking school is one of them.

[Newsomething]

On that note, is the CIA the do all and end all of schools?  I was reading the latest issue of Food & Wine that profiles the best new chefs.  Only one of them attended the CIA.  I am interested in attending culinary school (I've worked every facet of the business over the last 10 years).  What about other institutions eg. French Culinary, Cordon Bleu, or perhaps a school in France?  Also, after footing the hefty bill of the CIA, what would you pay someone just out of school, and how many years, considering the person is worth their weight, does it take to move up to a reasonable rate?  

Thanks