I have been on a mission to understand what a chef is and the various grades and types of them. Here is what I learnt
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A kitchen chef is a person who cooks professionally for other people. Below are various titles given to those working in a professional kitchen and each can be considered a title for a type of chef.
Chef de cuisine : This person is in charge of all things related to the kitchen.
Sous-chef : The sous-chef de cuisine is the direct assistant of the executive chef.
Expediter : The expediter takes the orders from the dining room and relays them to the stations in the kitchen.
Chef de partie : A chef de partie, also known as a "station chef" or "line cook", is in charge of a particular area of production.
Commis : A commis is an apprentice in larger kitchens that works under a chef de partie to learn the station's responsibilities and operation.
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As I understand, these are the roles that are awarded based on seniority and skill in their areas. This is the accepted norm world over.
Now, I see a new trend, wherein even wannabe cooks are graded as chefs. No, it is not arbitrary, there is a definite logic in the entire grading system. I shall briefly dwell upon the grades and the criteria and thereon go the origin of this new line of thought.
Sub-junior chef : This is the learner cook, someone who tries simple recipes. Recipes that are safe, do-able and within his/her comfort zone. There is no creativity involved whatsoever. A sub-junior chef blindly follows tried and tested recipes whether it be ingredients or the method. And yeah, a sub-junior chef makes mistakes. Lots of mistakes. A dish done well once doesn’t necessitate that it will be good the next time too. A sub-junior chef has immense potential to create disasters where none lurk and jump right into them. Bang on!
Junior chef : These are the experienced cooks. They know their methods well and the pros and cons of subtle changes in ingredients and the methods. But they do not, I repeat, do not go outside their comfort zone. They do not create new dishes. They are happy to serve lip smacking meals to near and dear ones and even more happy to be appreciated as "excellent cook!". They preen under such praise. But seldom can we see this potential going beyond their realm.
Senior chef : Now this is the breed which can be thought as the crème de la crème of the gastronomic world. They are the creators, they are the thinkers, they are the improvisers. They can give a new twist to the most basic eons-old recipe. We can safely assume that all we eat today can be attributed to some or other senior-chef at some point in time. After all, someone should have thought up of combinations to produce desirable tastes. That someone my friend, belongs to the senior-chef category. I salute this category, without which we would still be eating fruits and berries and bland meat.
I perchance encountered this new categorisation very recently. I had to dig, question and grill quite a bit to understand the differences between the sub-junior and junior, and junior and senior. All I have done here is elaborate upon the very crisp, clear vocabulary used to express the demarcation.
By this I fall under the sub-junior category.
My mother, mother-in-law, in fact most women I personally know fall under the junior category.
It’s the people who run cookery shows on the TV and internet who
may fall under the senior category.
I am sure you would have questions, queries or even counter points to the criteria mentioned above.
If you do, the person to contact is Siddharth Siju, an 8 year old boy who resides at Bangalore.
He also happens to be my son.
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Dork: The Incredible Adventures Of Robin 'einstein' Varghese by Sidin Vadukut
