Chapter 1
A Snapshot of the Culinary Arts Profession
In This Chapter
Understanding what culinary professionals do
Considering whether school or work is better preparation for a culinary career
Finding work in a culinary field
Exploring the outlook for cooking jobs
If you’re reading this book, you must be considering a career in culinary arts. Entering a new career field can be exciting and a little scary, so congratulations on taking the first step! Culinary arts is a challenging, rewarding, and creative field, and the future job outlook is favorable. That’s the good news. The bad news? Succeeding in the culinary world takes skill, knowledge, determination, and experience. Depending on the position you hope to land, you may have to go to culinary school. And even if you go to school, restaurant experience may be a requirement. (Think server, dishwasher, or fast-food cook.)
More good news: Culinary professionals enjoy their work. Most can’t imagine earning a living any other way. Why? It’s all about the food! Culinary professionals eat, sleep, and dream about food. They enjoy preparing it, cooking it, plating it, serving it, and, of course, eating it. If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re among the food obsessed, and a career in culinary arts may be a good choice for you.
What Does It Mean to Work in the Culinary Arts?
Think about the words culinary and arts. What do these words mean? Anything related to food is referred to as being culinary. Anyone associated with food, from chefs to dishwashers, work in the culinary field. Arts is a whole different matter. Everyone who works in a creative field is an artist. Painter Leonardo da Vinci and poet Emily Dickinson were artists. An executive chef, a pastry chef, and baker are also artists, but of a different kind. Their canvas is a plate and their medium is food.
Culinary arts, then, is the art of food, and culinary artists are people who do creative things with food. Their work goes beyond cooking a tuna casserole for dinner. They create dishes that are a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. And they do this in many different places in many different capacities.
Working in culinary arts is not easy or glamorous, and only the strong survive. Culinary professionals work long hours, often when the rest of us are at home relaxing or asleep. They work weekends and holidays and spend the majority of their time on their feet. They work under pressure in crowded, hot kitchens where tempers fly. The noise in a commercial kitchen may be nerve-wracking. Chefs and cooks shout out orders, shout at the staff, and may even cuss. Working in a culinary kitchen is no day at the beach. The thin-skinned need not apply.
Where cooking professionals work
Many culinary professionals work in restaurants, but you find them in other places as well. We give you the lowdown on the variety of establishments that employ culinary pros in Chapter 2, but for now, here’s a brief list. You’re certain to find culinary professionals that cook in these places:
Restaurants, large and small (see Chapter 5)
Hotel restaurants and kitchens, which may include banquet halls (see Chapter 6)
Resorts and spas (see Chapter 6)
Pastry shops and bakeries (see Chapter 8)
Catering companies (see Chapter 7)
Institutions such as hospitals, airlines, cruise ships, schools, and correctional centers (see Chapter 7)
Kitchens in homes as personal and private chefs (see Chapter 9); as artisans (see Chapter 10); or as culinary entrepreneurs (see Chapter 18)
Culinary schools (see Chapter 14)
Test kitchens (see Chapters 10 and 12)
Commissary kitchens (see Chapters 3, 5, 6, and 8)
What non-cooking culinary professionals do
Lots of culinary jobs are available even if you’re not interested in actually cooking for a living. Check out these non-cooking culinary professional roles:
Food writers, cookbook editors, and television and radio hosts (see Chapter 12)
Food photographers and stylists (see Chapters 12 and 14)
Food scientists (see Chapter 10)
Retail salespeople and purchasers (see Chapter 15)
Beverage and wine experts (see Chapter 11)
Food-related public relations and marketing professionals (see Chapter 13)
Looking Beyond Food Prep: What Culinary Professionals Do
If you enter a culinary profession that involves cooking, you’ll perform other tasks in addition to cooking food for customers. Your specific job duties depend on the place where you work and the position you hold. For example, the executive chef is typically the top dog in a kitchen, and a line cook is much lower in the chain of command, so the duties of those two jobs are different. (To learn more about the kitchen brigade, turn ahead to Chapter 5.)
Most culinary professionals involved in cooking have some or all of these job duties:
Prepping food (washing, cutting, chopping, peeling, and pounding)
Preparing ingredients (mixing, weighing, and measuring)
Lifting heavy items (such as pots and sacks of flour and potatoes)
Purchasing supplies and ingredients
Baking, roasting, broiling, and steaming meats and fish
Baking, steaming, roasting, and sautéing vegetables
