Cookery: behind the scenes......
Chefs, cooks, and food preparation workers prepare, and cook many different kinds of foods ranging from soups, snacks, and salads to main dishes, sides, and desserts, in restaurants, cafes and other places that serve food. You’ll have seen celebrity chefs on television. These chefs often work in hotels and fine dining restaurants.
However, chefs and cooks work in a wide variety of establishments, from cafès, buffet and reception restaurants, conference centres, hospitals, aged care facilities, to flight catering, armed services, and cruise liners.
Junior chefs work to a set plan based on the menu, doing food preparation, basic meals at service time and cleaning down after service. Senior chefs include “Chef de partie” (in charge of a section of the kitchen), “Sous Chef” (deputy head chef) and “Executive Chef” (head chef). Senior chefs supervise the junior chefs and cooks, plan meal production, devise new dishes and menus, order food from suppliers, and supervise the quality of the food being served.
Developing new dishes and menus requires both imagination and talent. The hours worked can be long and hard. Chefs need to be able to work under pressure, make quick decisions, “multi-task” and deal with many different activities, especially during service when the ability to work at speed is critical. You need to be able to cost menus and dishes and meet cost and profit targets set by the establishment.
Restaurants and bigger food service establishments usually have diverse menus and many staff. Sometimes chefs and cooks work within a designated area, with the equipment and ingredients for specific foods prepared only in that area.
Many chefs take part in competitions, local and international, to further their creative potential. You can travel all over the world with a career in cookery – people always need to eat. Almost all chefs undertake professional training and gain national qualifications, either at Polytechnic or as an apprentice, learning and earning while they are working.
There are many exciting things to do after you’ve trained in cookery. You can become the Head Chef in a restaurant or cafe, open your own restaurant, or progress into more general management, especially in larger establishments.
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