by Shaun Duffy

I am proud to say that I cook for a living.

This is why I went to school, and this is how I support myself.

Not too long ago, cooking wasn’t perceived as an acceptable profession. It was just one of those jobs that someone gets to put them through college—or, if you don’t know English, you become a cook.

I guess acceptable jobs are those where you make a lot of money, such as business, banking, or medicine, or the nine-to-five jobs where you have company picnics and casual Fridays.

Today, schools are being opened to teach people to cook. Not just any schools, but Le Cordon Bleu and American Culinary Federation accredited schools. Also, there is a 24 hour cooking channel devoted to cooks and chefs alike. Does this mean that cooking is a “real job” now? Can I join the others who make up the acceptable workforce?

There is a profitable market out there for restaurants, and for chefs. Some have even achieved celebrity status. This is great for the culinary industry because it shows young cooks that chefs are making it. There is money to be made and opportunity to be had in this once lonely profession.

Chefs are perceived differently, and the world of cooking is slowly being exposed, but there are some misconceptions as well.
One of the most overused words in the English language is the word “chef.”

Today, anyone is a chef. I was raised to respect this word, and not everybody who cooks is “a chef.”

If you have “shrimp poppers, extreme fajitas, or pizza shooters” on your menu, you are not a chef.

If you have four deep fryers, a flat top griddle, and zero pans in your kitchen, you are not a chef. You are a kitchen manager.

Culinary students, or cooks who are working their way up in fine restaurants, find it disrespectful when the word chef is given to just anybody, because they work extremely hard to one day become a chef.

It usually means starting out at the bottom, doing the projects that nobody else in the kitchen wants to do, like peeling potatoes or chopping mire poix.

Another misconception is that of graduates suddenly turning into chefs. Once someone graduates from culinary school, that does not mean they are a chef. Culinary school opens the door to the world of the culinary profession, but it doesn’t teach a student to be a good cook automatically. Culinary schools introduce the skills and techniques of great cooking. But the only way a graduate will become good at these things is with repetition: doing it over and over, night after night, in a real restaurant, not a classroom. This is how someone really achieves their focus and gets comfortable working with fire and razor sharp knives.

I am not saying that culinary school is a bad thing; I think it is a necessity to graduate from a culinary school today, because most of the great chefs have done so. You are learning the same things they learned. This will allow you to use and understand the same terminology, techniques, and theory of the chef. Also, in some hotels and restaurants you need a culinary degree to move up through the ranks.

It takes time to become a chef, and that means experience. There are rules and standards that chefs and educated cooks stand by. They follow Escoffier’s doctrine, follow the unattainable pursuit of perfection, and know how to properly sauté, braise, poach, and roast.

George Forman and his grill are not culinary geniuses to us.

I don’t call myself a chef because I am not one, yet. I have the title of a cook for a reason; because I cook. There is no fancy name for it and my title and my job description are the same word. Plain and simple.

Some people refuse to call themselves cooks because there is a stereotype that comes with the word. For example, cooks are people who don’t have an education, or who have criminal backgrounds. In some cases this is true, but all CEO’s don’t steal form their workers and all lawyers are not liars. These are just stereotypes.

Chefs are different. They have been around the block a few times, and are encyclopedias of culinary knowledge. They deal with a lot more than cooking like food cost, managing and wondering whether they hired the right people.

Chefs are the people that the cooks look to for guidance, and for the right answer. One day I want to be a chef—but for now, I want to keep learning and keep cooking.

Cooking is one of the most fulfilling jobs that anyone can do. We are satisfy a common need of the human race, eating. We need to eat to survive.

With all the crazy things that are going on in the world, I find comfort in the simplicity that we are just cooking dinner. We cook not only for the money, but for the pride and gratitude we receive from guests expressing their thanks for something we crafted.

–From the July 2004 Austin Review