How to Become a Chef
For people with a passion for cooking and eating, a career as a chef is a very tantalizing prospect. Working around food is a dream job for anyone who likes making new recipes and tinkering with tools in the kitchen. If you want a career as a professional chef, here are great ways to start.
Culinary School
World-famous chefs are trained in culinary schools, and some even run their own culinary academies. Culinary school is a great place where you can learn about different cooking styles and techniques in food preparation:
Cuisine. In culinary school, you get to learn about the many ways of preparing food all over the world. It’s not uncommon for chefs to specialize in the cuisine of a particular country or culture. Fusion cuisine, or a combination of ingredients and cooking methods from all over the world, is also very popular technique used in culinary school.
Food science. Many culinary schools consider their course offerings as the science of food preparation. Advanced courses in culinary schools teach courses like food chemistry, the physics of cooking, plant and animal biology, and other courses from natural science that deal with how best to prepare food, and discover other ways of cooking ingredients.
Self-Teaching
Some of the world’s best and most renowned chefs, cooks, and restaurant owners did not get formal training from culinary schools. Instead, many of them learned cooking on their own, or improved on old family recipes to create sumptuous dishes and delectable meals. If you’ve been working around the kitchen for a long time and have a real passion for food, you can earn your respect and titles when you do make it to the mainstream world of cooking.
Chef Rankings
chefHigh-class restaurants usually employ a group of chefs to handle the cooking duties in a kitchen. A group of chefs is called a “brigade,” and is used for many kitchens that specialize in gourmet cuisine or use French titles to designate roles in the kitchen. Depending on your training, skill level and experience, you can achieve a certain rank in a restaurant kitchen, where you specialize in one or more aspects of cooking:
The chef de cuisine, also known as the head chef or the executive chef, is the person in charge of the entire kitchen. He or she is also responsible for creating and preparing the restaurant’s signature dish.
The sous-chef, also called the assistant chef, is second-in-line to the executive chef, and assists him or her in the kitchen. The sous-chef also takes over the duties of the executive chef if he or she is absent.
The chef de partie is one of the many line cooks that prepare particular dishes in the kitchen. One chef may be in charge of the grill, another may be in charge of frying, and still another may specialize in dessert items or sauces.
The commis is the title of the apprentice chef. Apprentices are usually given the task of preparing food for cooking and keep the kitchen clean. A skilled commis may also train under one of the higher-ranking chefs in the kitchen.
Food lovers and cooks would definitely like the opportunity to work at a professional kitchen. With these tips and an understanding of how a restaurant kitchen works, you can fulfill your dream of being a professional chef.