Monthly Archive for June, 2010

Becoming a “Fast Food” Chef

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on June 28, 2010
in Culinary Career
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Become a Fast Food ChefFor most culinary students, the idea of working in fast food isn’t one that inspires a lot of hope for the future. After all, you don’t have to have a degree in order to assemble hamburgers, and working in a fast food kitchen is one of the lowest-paying jobs you’ll find in the culinary world.

However, being a fast food chef isn’t all about going to work at the fryer for eight hours every day. It is possible to work in the fast food industry and put your culinary education to good use.

  • Food Scientists: Every fast food company, from McDonald’s to Auntie Anne’s, has a team of chefs who work at the home office, developing new items for the menu and improving food quality. These new items can take years to perfect, and the process includes everything from doing market research and determining what sort of food is going to be the next big thing to coming up with ways to keep the food fresh and tasty on a mass-production scale.
  • Teaching: The fast food industry has a fairly high turnover rate for employees, and it’s necessary to train new recruits almost continuously. While the actual task of cook training generally falls on another lower-level employee at the store, the techniques used are developed by a team of experts. It requires quite a bit of culinary knowledge to come up with a basic skills training process that is both safe and effective.
  • Safety and Sanitation: All fast food restaurants are held to high standards of sanitation and food safety. As is the case with cook training, the techniques for food safety are developed at the national level and passed down to individual chain restaurants. Developing and monitoring safety and sanitation techniques often falls to higher-level specialists with culinary training.

Working in the executive or development offices of a fast food restaurant can be a very rewarding career. Not only do the hours tend to fall in the 9-to-5 range and offer a more relaxed workplace, but the pay can reach upwards of $80,000 per year. If you’re looking for great job stability that still taps into your culinary training, fast food can actually be a wise career move.

The Difference Between Chefs and Sommeliers

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on June 14, 2010
in Culinary Career
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Difference Between Chef and SommelierOne of the many specialty courses offered at top culinary schools is sommelier training, or wine stewardship. From a professional standpoint, becoming a Sommelier (with a capital letter) is akin to becoming a Chef (with a capital letter). It’s a designation that doesn’t come easily, and it requires years of training and experience, as well as a certification, to acquire the illustrious tastevin to wear around the neck.

What a Sommelier Does

A Sommelier is basically the individual in a restaurant in charge of ordering, storing, rotating, recommending, pairing, and serving wine. Due to the high-end nature of a Sommelier’s job, positions tend to be very rare and hard to come by, even when the professional has the education and experience to back up his or her skills.

The Sommelier is often considered a “wine manager” of sorts. He or she is responsible for training the wait staff on proper pouring and serving techniques, oftentimes going so far as to host wine sampling meetings that introduce the cooks and waiters to the varying wines so as to better serve the customers as a whole.

How Sommeliers and Chefs Work Together

It has long been understood that a good wine can be paired with a dish, making the flavors bolder and better, according to the undertones and quality of the wine. Chefs who work in fine dining restaurants often have some sort of formal culinary training regarding the pairing of wine and food, since they are catering to a clientele that will almost always order the two together.Along those same lines, many Sommeliers have attended culinary classes, if only to understand how the cooking process affects food flavors and the eating experience.

At present, there are two primary types of formal Sommeliers: Master Sommeliers (MS) and Masters of Wine (MW). The MS designation is a lot like a top Chef who doesn’t go to culinary school, instead learning on the job and through intense self-directed study and mentorships, while the MW is someone who takes a more formally academic route at one of the few locations offering the course. In both cases, it requires quite a bit of dedication; there are fewer than 400 MWs and MSs in the entire world.

Culinary School and Wine Training

If you plan on getting a culinary education, it’s not required that you take a wine course, but you may find that it’s a great boost to your resume. Knowledge of all food items – including beverages – can go a long way in making you more marketable as a culinary professional.

Learning to Cook Breakfast and Brunch

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on June 7, 2010
in Cooking Techniques
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Learn to Cook Breakfast and BrunchFor many people, going to culinary school to learn how to cook usually conjures up images of elaborate, five-course meals with accompanying wine selections. For others, a culinary education is a way to get the training necessary to become a baker, making wedding cakes and desserts in a quaint, boutique-like atmosphere.

However, one of the most popular sayings among cooks is that the one true test of culinary skill is how well you cook eggs. This seemingly simple ingredient requires experience and skill in order to be used correctly, and the art of making eggs is something that many modern chefs hold up as the standard in culinary excellence.

Where to Get Breakfast Culinary Training

Most of the top culinary schools in the United States offer breakfast cooking as part of a larger education course, where it is mixed in with other specialized skills like working with cold foods or learning to prepare soup. Moderate cooking schools, like those you encounter at the community college level, may provide only cursory education on breakfast cooking, since it represents such a small portion of the current job market. In fact, if breakfast is something you’re really interested in learning, you may actually need to find an employer in the hospitality trade industry who will help you build the skills you need, since brunch is becoming an increasingly important focus of high-end hotel offerings.

Another option is to attend a certification course through a school like The Culinary Institute of America in New York. Because the CIA is such a well-known name in the culinary field, they offer a professional skills development course that draws in students from all over the world. This particular course, Breakfast & Brunch Cookery, will give you hands-on experience with egg dishes, quick breads, and breakfast salads.

For many chefs and cooks, breakfast represents just part of a huge repertoire of skills and abilities. If you’re interested in learning to cook breakfast for personal reasons, you may want to turn to online videos and cookbook training. If you’re interested in learning to cook breakfast as a way to boost your culinary resume and advance your skills, it’s worth looking into local and non-local culinary schools that might offer a brunch and egg course, or simply to find a mentor chef who might let you do some job shadowing.

Related Topics

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