Schooled chefs vs. on-the-job trained chefs

[TheMan,TheMyth]

I don't know if this topic has been covered before because I am fairly new to this site. If it has been covered I apologize in advance.

Does anyone out there have a favorite chef that didn't have any formal training?

No matter how many classes you attend, I know there is no replacement for on-the-job training. I feel the amount of education that is gained in the trenches is priceless.

While working in restaurants I was surprised by how many inexperienced cooks were coming out of culinary school. Many chefs who started in the industry at a young age without school ended up working circles around the highly educated chef who was new to the kitchen.

I was floored one time when I worked with an intern from Johnson and Wales who had just completed his first year. The guy couldn't find the broiler. He didn't know the difference between the broiler and the oven!!

He may be the exception, but I have seen many people just like him.

TheMan,TheMyth

TapItorScrapIt.com

[Bouland]

As far as famous chefs who haven't been to cooking school, the first to come to mind is Thomas Keller of the French Laundry in Yountville, CA.

All the chefs I've worked with in France learned on the job, and they have little good to say about cooking schools in France. There are basics, such as sanitation and knife skills, that can be learned in cooking schools, but learning how to cook requires lots of OJT. It's analogous to becoming a doctor, the book learning is a helpful preparatory to the actual apprenticeship.

[g.johnson]

Gunn Erikson, the Chef of the Altnaharrie Inn (2 Michelin stars but now closed alas) was, I believe, self taught.

[GordonCooks]

What about Charlie Trotter ? Or probably someone who will be the future Jacques Pepin or Andre Soltner - someone who has melded classic French and Asian technique with indigenous ingredients, I think we all know of whom I speak... Robert Flay.

I think that's who I meant to say...what was the topic again ??

[ngatti]

I'm pretty sure Flay wnt to Kump's or was it FCI. Maybe he'll clarify.

My own favorite mustang chef is...me! (no big head smiley?)

I like this topic. I'd like to post more about my experiences. But no time now. The sockeye awaits.

Nick

[Steve Klc]

TMTM--answering from the perspective as a diner, I couldn't care less. It doesn't affect how I experience or perceive a meal or a dish. It's either interesting, creative, satisfying and good or it isn't.

No degree, no ACF certification or initials like CEC after their name will change that. However, neither will where they worked previously!

Answering from the perspective of a chef, I couldn't care less as well. It's what you know and what you can do. You are either talented, hard-working, aware, experienced, interesting, creative and able to perform your tasks at hand or you aren't.

To my mind, the only thing worse than decrying "formal training" is someone who claims to be a self-taught chef. But that's for another thread.

Now on to some specifics: why set up this artificial distinction between "formal training" and learning on the job? Must one exclude the other? Must it be an either/or situation? Even those who've gone through the best schools say your real education doesn't begin until you get out in real kitchens anyway?

Something that has been said on eGullet before TMTM is that cooking school, formal training, on the job training, externships, stages, internships, whatever--is only as valuable and rewarding as the effort you put in and the choices you make along the way--where to go, who to work under, who to learn from. Chefs succeed by navigating the bumps along many different roads and no two careers--no two stores of knowledge and skill--are accumulated the same way.

Inexperienced cooks coming out of cooking school are just that...inexperienced. Where's the rub? Now, if you want to bitch and moan about newbies coming out of school with a sense of entitlement from certain schools--fine. But that's not news. You help this newbie from Johnson & Wales find the broiler and down the road, he might just introduce you to Daniel Boulud. You never know how your network of colleagues can help you.

Bouland--either we don't know the same French chefs and pastry chefs or you don't know very good ones. Very few were not the product of a specialized trade school and technical certificate process initially. Do your friends have poor things to say about l'Ecole Lenotre or Thuries or Bellouet or Yssingeaux or Pascal Caffet or Olivier Bajard or Pascal Brunstein and on and on and on? Many French schools kick butt--so do their instructors--and so do several schools, programs and instructors here in the US and Canada.

Thomas Keller may not have gone to cooking school but would anyone say he wasn't formally trained? Who really cares? What was he doing every hour he spent in a kitchen working under or alongside someone else or reading a book or dining in someone else's restaurant if not learning and training?

No amount of school or on the job experience guarantees that you have any taste or palate or skill or creativity. Only your work testifies to that.

[ngatti]

Steve Klc said:

To my mind, the only thing worse than decrying "formal training" is someone who claims to be a self-taught chef. But that's for another thread

Hey!, I resemble that remark.

Seriously though, I take you to mean; who amongst us is truly self-taught. All of us learn every day from the first day we set foot into a kitchen, whether in school or in a working restaurant.

Now as read the rest of your eloquent post, I see that you explain the above in such a manner that I'm at a complete loss for words. There is nothing I can add. You've said it all...and said it well.

Bouland said:

All the chefs I've worked with in France learned on the job, and they have little good to say about cooking schools in France. There are basics, such as sanitation and knife skills, that can be learned in cooking schools, but learning how to cook requires lots of OJT.

I might posit something else here. I might say that learning a lot of good personal cooking Technique requires lots of OJT. Analagous perhaps to an artist learning how to efficiently prep a canvas, cutting brushes, mixing paints etc. Learning how to place properly, keep pans hot, remembering to stash side towels, making the utility staff your friend, and turning on the hoods in the morning before you light up. These are things that you learn OTJ. They go in your virtual kitchen skill toolbox. I think a lot of the cooking HEART is already in you. The techniques that you learn throughout your career only help to refine that heart. I've worked with a lot of externs and I've worked with a lot of mustangs. I'll only agree that dealing with them requires different management skills. Each has pluses and minuses. Nothing that I can paint with a broad brush. Ultimately it comes down to the charactor of the individual.

But I will share one anecdotal observation: In my experience an idealistic culinary school grad will usually show much respect, even awe, for their first kitchen, chef, fellow cooks and utility staff. In return that recent grad will get much more disrespect from the mustang cooks, chefs and sous chefs. I see no rational reason for this.

Nick

[Lreda]

When looking to hire a chef for my kitchen, It's not high up on my list whether they were formally trained or not. I will go by recomenations from past employers and what I hear through the grapevine about this person. Their ability to fit in is very important as is a even temper. Common sense is also important.

Of course I was never formally trained and learned OTJ. My father used to bring me out to Jersey from The Bronx when I was 13 to shuck clams, dry silverware, wash pots & pans ( Thanks, Dad). By 15 I was a bus boy, 17 Waiter, 18 Bartender, 21 Host & Manager, 23 Cook, 29 Restaurant Owner. In between I was fired by father twice and quit once. I worked for others a total of 5 times. Between 23 & 29 I was fortunate enough to have worked with 4 quality chefs who showed me the ropes. Between those 4 chefs, 2 were school trained, 2 were OTJ trained.

Don't know if this offers any insight but for me it just doesn't matter if it's OTJ or School trained. But common sense should dictae above all else.

[Bouland]

Either we don't know the same French chefs and pastry chefs or you don't know very good ones.  Very few were not the product of a specialized trade school and technical certificate process initially.

The chefs I work with (or have in the worked with in the past), save one, all have at least one Michelin star. They do hire cooking school graduates and in some cases those on work study, but the chefs have all expressed the opinion that the quality of the students they get is low. But, they say, it's getting harder and harder to find workers for the kitchen who are willing to spend the time and energy to learn the business. It's even rarer to find a 16-year-old who wants to apprentice in the traditional manner.

[SerenityH82]

Well I have to agree with you on that one. Im in a cooking program which starts back august 27. Well last year when i started it I had no idea what it was like working in that enviroment. We did have practicum which placed us in a restaurant or hospital. I learned quickly what it was like to work in that enviroment. And no class can prepare you for that.

Serenity Hutchinson

[chopjwu12]

i went to cooking school to play baseball so maybe im a good subject for this question. I really dont think it matters school no school. i think the only thing that seperates a good cook and a bad cook are a passion for the job and for food. You can walk into a kicthen and not know a thing but someone with a passion to learn will know alot more then when he walked in that day.

As far as cooking school goes i think most of them are bullshit. I graduated with kids that thought they were the best thing that happened to the kitchen but i know they wont last a week. Like i said its all about what you take out of it and how much you love it

[robsimons]

I think that you all are getting two things confused, cooks vs. chefs. First not all cooks will ever be chefs and not all good chefs are good cooks. There will always be a difference in the cook who can put out 400 covers a night but can't be creative and the chef who can come up with the most create creative dishes ever seen, but can't cook his way out of a 20 cover party.

Also as a current culinary student, I take offense that culinary students are of low quality. Formal training does not teach you how to be a cook. It teaches you7 techniqu7es of cooking, ingredients and the base edu7cation that takes the OJT edu7cated person 5-7 years to learn.

You7 only learn to be a cook by OJT and everyone mu7st go throu7gh this whether they are school learned or apprentice learned.

And ju7st becau7se you7 go to cu7linary school doesn't mean you7 are "learned". Learning is all abou7t what you7 want to pu7t into it. If you7 go the extra mile in school, you7 will become a cook or chef faster than the gu7y who puttered his way throu7gh school.

Please excu7se the typing, keyboard is broken. And this cook doesn't get paid enou7gh to fix it.

[Kristian]

At least in Finland, all on-the-job training includes also theoretical studies, so that they complement, rather than replace, each other.

It has to be noted that on-the-job training/learning (or work-related learning, for you americans) is a separate issue from self-learning or learning solely from work. On-the-job learning is usually used as a technical term related to the field of education and their modern (actually re-invented (apprenticeship)) teaching methods, while the latter has nothing to do with formal education and does not produce certificates.

On-the-job training usually includes a formal agreement between the workplace, the student and the educational establishment. The workplace is required to assign a tutor/mentor for the student for the time of the training period.

Thus far, including on-the-job training to various fields of vocational education has given good results, and given the students a possibility to make contacts with the companies and get a feel of actual worklife.

From this point of view, I'd trust in the skills of cooks etc. who have been in on-the-job training.

[Leslie Brenner]

Some of the best cooks I know learned neither in cooking school nor on the job in a restaurant, but rather at home in their childhood kitchen, at their mother's side. Certainly there are amazing benefits to learning in school or in a professional kitchen (technically difficult preparations, cooking in quantity, cooking under pressure, etc.), but I've seen cooks in great restaurant make mistakes that a good home cook would never make.

[mynamejoe]

Leslie, I don't think that a comparison can be made between cooking at home and cooking in a commercial setting. The two are completely different. Also, this topic pertains to what makes a better professional cook; it's not about cooks in general. I also believe that home cooks make mistakes just as much as professionals do, it's human nature to err.

BTW, the benefits you listed for school and on-the-job training are the skill sets necessary to be a professional cook. Mom never taught me that, so for a professional cook, it's got to be one, the other or preferably both.

[Leslie Brenner]

Mynamejoe, I've seen many a professional cook who would be a better chef if he or she had some of the skills that only come with a lifetime of cooking, i.e. the kind of skills great home cooks have. I didn't mean to imply that home cooks would make better chefs.

[mynamejoe]

I hate assuming, so could you clarify exactly what you mean by "skills"? Do you mean technique, creativity, palate, the ability to put a bit of themselves into what they are preparing, or all or some of the above? Also, as professional cooks also have a lifetime of cooking under their belts (both at home and at work), why do you think that a home cook develops said skills while the professional does not?

BTW, I also don't think that home cooks would necessarily make better chefs or vice-versa. I'm just saying that certain comparisons can't be made between the two. My stance on the matter is that, regardless of time spent cooking and where that time was spent (home or work) has no bearing on the eventual level of ability of a cook. As Steve Klc put it, "No amount of school or on the job experience guarantees that you have any taste or palate or skill or creativity. Only your work testifies to that. " I think that applies to all cooks.

edited for redundant semantics, God I'm picky!

[Leslie Brenner]

could you clarify exactly what you mean by "skills"? Do you mean technique, creativity, palate, the ability to put a bit of themselves into what they are preparing, or all or some of the above?

All of the above, though I'd say home cooks tend not to have great knife skills.

Also, as professional cooks also have a lifetime of cooking under their belts (both at home and at work), why do you think that a home cook develops said skills while the professional does not?

I think the great majority of professional cooks do not have a lifetime of cooking under their belts.  During the year-plus I spent in the kitchen at Daniel while researching The Fourth Star, for example, almost all of the line cooks had less than five years of cooking experience--and they were often fresh out of culinary school, with no experience at all before that.  Cooks who have become chefs (with at least sous chef positions) tend to have much more, but most cooks are not chefs.

BTW, I also don't think that home cooks would necessarily make better chefs or vice-versa. I'm just saying that certain comparisons can't be made between the two. My stance on the matter is that, regardless of time spent cooking and where that time was spent (home or work) has no bearing on the eventual level of ability of a cook. As Steve Klc put it, "No amount of school or on the job experience guarantees that you have any taste or palate or skill or creativity. Only your work testifies to that. " I think that applies to all cooks.

I hear you.  And I would never suggest that home cooks would make good chefs--very rarely do they have the technique or ability to work under pressure or in quantity, as I think I already mentioned.

One thing I'd add, and I think Steve Klc was getting at this, is that there's a certain intuitive ability to put together flavors, textures, cooking techniques, etc. in order to create something delicious that some home cooks have and some don't and some professionals have, and some don't.  It's that that separates the great cooks from the rest.

I'm trying to quote here, answering each part of the quote in turn, but can't figure out how...my apologies!

[Steve Klc]

I didn't realize this thread was still alive since I first posted, but I just dropped in here and it is hard to figure out who is saying what. But--I'm guessing Leslie said this "One thing I'd add, and I think Steve Klc was getting at this, is that there's a certain intuitive ability to put together flavors, textures, cooking techniques, etc. in order to create something delicious that some home cooks have and some don't and some professionals have, and some don't.  It's that that separates the great cooks from the rest."

Well, whoever said this--this is precisely how I feel.

And as far as the question: "why do you think that a home cook develops said skills while the professional does not?" I can think of four salient factors--working chefs and cooks don't read as much and aren't as educated, don't travel as much, don't eat out at the high end as much and aren't usually encouraged to create or "experiment" on the job but rather do things the same consistent way, the chef's way, time and time again. I realize this is a gross generalization--but working chefs and cooks--work. Hard. They develop deftness, dexterity, stamina and coordination. Many didn't go to college and have never read Harold McGee nor Ed Behr, nor are capable of understanding them even if they should find the time. And depending on where they work--many are aren't exposed to the best in their field often enough.

Instead, they know what it takes to do their job--and an awful, mundane, stressful, blue collar job it is at times.

Chefs don't have anywhere near as much time to read MFK Fisher or Leslie Brenner or John Whiting or Steve Shaw. They're worried whether their dishwasher is going to show up tomorrow or whether their wife is going to be pissed again that they're getting home late. They're worrying whether they made the right choice to take the job at the country club rather than at the Marriott Hotel. I don't think working cooks and chefs are as likely as passionate amateur cooks to have read books by Keller, Herme, Colicchio, Kunz or Adria,either, to try to understand them.

Nuance, perspective, palate and passion don't come from books, school or on-the-job-training--it comes from within and is nurtured--and I don't feel I'm going out on too far a limb here by saying a "home cook" is as likely as not to understand this.

[ngatti]

Steve I might also say, speaking for the professional, that he/she usually has a much greater developed technique, and once shown some of those dishes and ingredients will usually come up with an original and interesting way of marrying his technical skills to the demands of the ingredient(s).

Having said that, I'd like to travel further down this slope by saying that I think the whole magilla works best when the two seemingly disparate types work side by side, with the resultant sum becoming much greater than the individual 'parts'. Franey/Claibourne and Pepin/Child are two pair that immediatly come to mind.

Once again you take the words from my mouth. Well, not really. But you did snatch some snippets of thought, not quite formed concepts, and just starting to congeal ideas that were beginning to coalesce within the confines of my skull and set them to readibilty:smile:.

Nick

[Leslie Brenner]

I'm guessing Leslie said this "One thing I'd add, and I think Steve Klc was getting at this, is that there's a certain intuitive ability to put together flavors, textures, cooking techniques, etc. in order to create something delicious that some home cooks have and some don't and some professionals have, and some don't.  It's that that separates the great cooks from the rest."

Well, whoever said this--this is precisely how I feel.

Yes, that was me. I hope to master the quoting thing sometime soon...

And thank you for mentioning me in the same breath with M.F.K. Fisher, John Whiting, and Steve Shaw!

[spicegirl]

My father trained himself by working as a bus boy, runner and waiter at Indian restaurants.

he now is a chef and makes some great Indian food.

But maybe the Steves of this site will not respect him enough for he is ethnic and cannot cook French food.

He does cook amazing Omelettes and Mrs. Kennedy had eaten his Omlette and said it was better than any she had tasted ever before. So, go figure.

But being ethnic is bad in America. For we are treated as second class citizens. Since 9/11 I see that finally black people are getting some respect. Now everyone is after us.

[Jinmyo]

[ShawtyCat]

I will now take a deep breath and take the posting plunge.

After reading Leslie Brenner's post and ruminating a little I've concluded that although I am a Pastry Chef, I do fit into the "home cook" slot. I have 1. learned to cook at a young age at many knees in my family 2. finally cracked open a cookbook at the ripe age of 14 and read voraciously about cooking techniques and science etc. And from a "home cook's" point of view there are just so many books you can read and technique videos you can purchase but it does not measure up to what you can learn by immersing yourself at a culinary school or restaurant.

I am the Pastry Chef, I really prefer cook because I am not up to my own standards yet, and although pastry is exhausting it is not as fast paced (at least where I work it isn't) as the line. I filled in for the short order cook one morning and got slammed by the breakfast rush. A cookbook cannot fully describe that feeling of utter panic. Of trying to remember the orders that are coming at you like bullets, trying to organize your "mental mise en place" (sorry Mr. Ruhlman but that phrase has been stuck in my head since reading your book) so you have what you need to do organized so you can get the orders out on time. So what if I can make breakfast at home with a baby strapped to my back, a toddler hugging my leg and the kindergartener yelling that she's not going to eat whatever Im cooking. I know this will be over as soon as the eggs are cooked. But at a restaurant you have no idea when the rush will end or if more people will show up. And at the end OF THE RUSH you are literally exhausted. Most people look at the restaurant through rose colored glasses, with flickers from Food TV in their heads, and do not understand what a HARD JOB it is.

Another thing that I'd like to mention about us "home cooks". I am sure we research techniques and have mastered the perfect pot roast, roasted turkey etc. But many of us, myself included, do not have a clue about knife skills. Fortunately, I did take a Food Safety Class (part of the job requirement) and know about food safety in the kitchen. How do you know you are executing the cooking techniques accurately? I've lookes at the technique for tourneing potatoes (can't remember which book right now) and I still cannot figure it out. There is much that you cannot learn from a one dimensional book or an edited video. I have a passion for cooking but my knowledge of cooking techniques is rather dreadful. I would love to go to culinary school to learn the technique of cooking so I can master them in the kitchen. Culinary school to me is a living reference cookbook. It only gives you so much.

My personal belief is that it does not matter where you go to learn, or how you learned, if you do not have a passion for the profession.

Contoversial Comment: I also believe that when you can look at a recipe, and see a source of inspiration for creating a new dish instead of a set of rules to cook by, then you can consider yourself a cook.

Ok...I am finished. Commence picking apart my post.

Jodi