/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>7594808
I started when I was 15 through a summer program in a medical facilities kitchen. obviously I legally wasn't allowed to do much so I mostly washed dishes. turned 16 and got into fast food. did a brief stint in retail when I turned 18. last summer I started in my hometowns shitty attempt at fine dinning. I cook at home for fun so there really wasn't a lot of training. don't go to school start at bottom work up, much more fun. also if you can't handle \b\ don't bother trying to get in, in my experience these are some of the most depraved mother fuckers you can meet in real life.

>>7594808
>To the line cooks out there, how did you become one?
I worked my ass off!

>Is it worth it to go to a CC culinary program or should you just start as the lowest tier in the back of the house operations and work your way up?
For actual working experience, you're gonna want to just get a stewarding position at a reputable venue and make yourself indispensable by being helpful, reliable and ON TIME. Starting from the bottom will give you a greater depth of knowledge and experience for restaurant Ops and will foster an appreciation for any property you work at that cookie college simply sill not provide.

If you want to go further than First Cook or CDP then you might look into Hotel & Restaurant Management programs at your local CC to get a leg up on the Administrative side of being a Chef, but work experience is going to be the bulk of your knowledge pool and the formal degree is mostly to please stuffed suits at banks and on extremely high-end hotel properties.

You can also teach yourself basic knife skills and butchering at home, on your own time.
Buy some 20-dollar GFS knives to start. Your first car doesn't need to be a Ferrari, right?
Practice batonnet and julienne onion and bell pepper (and dicing these items as small dice and brunoise), oblique, lozenge, framiere, rondel and paysenne carrots, chiffonade basil leaf and tourne potato. Simple tasks you might be asked to do if a lot of prep needs to be done and you have downtime while stewarding.


>Do you hate your job?
I love my work. Back in school they said 'you are gifted. You can do anything you want to do if you put your mind to it' and so I have. If you want to do it, you will. If you don't, you won't.

>>7595036
>>7594833
Thank you guys.

I think I will pick up knives like you suggested.

>>7595036
How long have you been in the field now?

>>7595036
Also are there any online resources you'd recommend to help instructing on the cutting styles?

Only started my line cooking job a few weeks ago, it sucks, the hours are way too long, the amount of work way too much, the people way to shitty.

Still loving it way more then any job i had before this.

Anybody in memphis need a dish/prep monkey?

>>7595419
>Also are there any online resources you'd recommend to help instructing on the cutting styles?
your basics are covered here
http://facs.usu.edu/files/uploads/knife%20skills.pdf

you can also check out any of the thousands of youtube vids on the subject.

hell, you could probably bang out all your basic technical skills at home watching YT vids if you had to but developing job-sense, teamwork and all the other relevant skills that separate a professional cook from suzy homemaker are going to take real time spent on the job. that's one of the reasons why '''''culinary arts''''' degrees are bullshit, as a matter of fact. these fresh fish come out of cookie class applying to properties like 'i want to be sous chef' and you gotta tell them, like, 'no, you're going to start at the bottom like everyone else at10/15/whatever an hour shucking fava beans for 11 hours a day.' good luck with that $80,000 student loan debt, yeah?

>How long have you been in the field now?
about 15 years

Coming from a culinary school into the business myself, I'd advise against it. Rather work your way up, if you're interested and willing to learn you'll get promoted in no time (if you're good), in most places. Culinary school is only worth it when you already have some time in the business, it adds up a lot to your knowledge and skills, but it won't really prepare you unless you do a lot of intern work.

I work at a fine dining restaurant, there is a lot of pressure, we might be getting a star next week, and I can't say I hate it. It's more like a love/hate relationship, it's hard to explain, maybe something to do with some kind of masochism.

>>7597056
>we might be getting a star next week
i sincerely hope you're ready for all the bullshit that comes along with getting put in the michelin guide with a star.

maybe check out all the different reasons why people have requested to be taken out or have their star(s) removed. might be an interesting read for you.

Anyone that said getting a degree is useless is fuckin retarded.

>>7597121
That depends on which degree you got, fish.

Hospitality Management? Great! You have a viable BA or MBA to back up your years of experience in the back-of-house.

Culinary Arts? Not so great! You have a LibArts degree for a field that hires literally anybody and a mountain of debt you're going to take 30 years to pay off.

>>7594808

By having every single one of your dreams fail and in a fit of lucidity realise that you have no defining talents beyond having opposable thumbs and taste buds?

>>7597144

>>7597023
>http://facs.usu.edu/files/uploads/knife%20skills.pdf

Thanks for this, I've already started reading it. After your initial post I spent a good couple hours going through YT for basic kitchen skills and its proved helpful, as you said.

>>7597056
Yeah I've heard from enough people that culinary school isn't the best route, I've applied to a couple local restaurants with open steward positions.

>>7594808
10 years in
Went to a crash course culinary school
Went from catering to chain restaurant to fine dining & now in a corporate cafeteria
I learned a lot, worked with some amazing chefs & had a lot of fun doing it but would not do it all again if given the chance
16 hour days at $10 an hour, burns cuts & bruises. Fights, drinking & drug problems & a divorce.
Went corporate to get a better life but even there they want you to work for chump change & kill yourself doing it.
Now I'm studying for CCNA/CCNP to get out of this miserable industry

I started working in the kitchen in 1989, the best advice I can give you is don't cook. You're better and smarter than that, fulfill your potential

>>7594808
>how did you become one?
By being a diligent and assiduous dishwasher and later prep cook.

>Is it worth it to go to a CC culinary program or should you just start as the lowest tier in the back of the house operations and work your way up?
Neither unless you're one of those insane misfits who like doing this until they drop dead (which is highly unlikely). If you're really hung up on this just go to work, culinary degrees are a fucking waste of time in the vast majority of cases. Do take the time to learn basic terms and techniques, though. You can find them in most classic cookbooks like Pépin's La Technique or something.

>Do you hate your job?
I did and I didn't. Not gonna lie, at times being on the line feels glorious and if you end up in a good crew you'll probably never experience similar camaraderie ever again in your life. But in the end it's actually miserable a lot of the time. I don't regret having been a cook but I never even considered doing this for much longer than I did.

I'm probably gonna get shit-talked for saying this but Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential can give you a good idea of what it is.

>>7599730
Damn...

>>7599730
i'm 18 and all the career advice i get stresses me out, especially yours

what the fuck am i supposed to do

>>7600037
do what makes you happy. restaurant work doesn't pay a whole lot of money but it is objectively better to be happy and thrive on the line with mediocre income than it is to be a miserable fuck selling SUVs to soccer moms or an office drone middle-manager or god forbid a dentist and hating your life from atop your pile of debt and mortgage papers.

>>7599794
>I'm probably gonna get shit-talked for saying this but Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential can give you a good idea of what it is.
Because it isn't accurate. It's a fictional tale of what it COULD be like, but only in a way that will garner sales of your book. It's a really bad synopsis of what it is really like.
-It's a good read, though. An interesting read. That's how fiction works.

culinary arts has to be the most unappealing job I've ever seen and everybody that does it immediately says that no one should do it, it's really self defeating how fucking negative everyone is, especially those in the field. same thing with game design. it's like, want to be a creative? go fuck yourself.

>>7600552
I should've mentioned that it isn't accurate for a lot of parts, but I believe it's spot on for a couple ones (in my experience and judging from other cooks I've met over the years). Especially when he writes about the first place he worked at and when he was at Les Halles.

At least I think, I haven't read it in a while.

>how do you become a line cook
it's called "unskilled labor" for a reason. You dont even have to speak english or know what the foods youre preparing are.

>is culinary school worth it
absolutely not. the "chefs" who teach culinary classes are the ones who arent running successful restaurants. that ought to tell you something.

>>7600552
a lot of stuff in the book is a bit exaggerated, but most is true... ( in my 30 years as cook I saw a lot of weird things like in the book, except the deal with arms in the restroom... sex in the garbage room, drugs, alcohol, workaholics , 24/24 shifts, crazy maniac cooks knife fights , chiefs shouting like the drill sergeant in "full metall jacket and a lot of blood and injuries. but also a lot of fun, friendship etc )

>>7600037
18 is young as fuck, just do internships and trials at each and every job you might find interesting.

>>7600037
Get neetbux

>>7600037
by cooking he might mean slamming pans around in a cramped kitchen
all the guys I knew who started in pastry/baking or moved to it are happier and those who work in nice catering/events are happy

>>7597144
What is debt mean?

>>7597091
I'm curious, and too lazy to research, why is this?

>>7599730
This. Cooking professionally is for people with criminal records or mental problems who literally can't do any better. The hours are insane, the pay is super low (enjoy wait staff making 2-3x as much as you), it's extremely stressful... I could go on and on. Seriously, if you have a chance to do ANYTHING else for a living, do it. Go be a welder or plumber or something even, you'll get paid five times as much.