Wednesday, April 9. 2008
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"What most people don't get about professional-level cooking is that it is not at all about the best recipe, the most innovative presentation, the most creative marriage of ingredients, flavors and textures; that, presumably, was all arranged long before you sat down to dinner. Line cooking -- the real business of preparing the food you eat -- is more about consistency, about mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way. The last thing a chef wants in a line cook is an innovator, somebody with ideas of his own who is going to mess around with the chef's recipes and presentations. Chefs require blind, near-fanatical loyalty, a strong back and an automaton-like consistency of execution under battlefield conditions...Ultimately, I want a salute and a "Yes, sir!". If I want an opinion from my line cooks, ''I'll'' provide one. Your customers arrive expecting the same dish prepared the same way they had it before; they don't want some budding Wolfgang Puck having fun with kiwis and coriander with a menu item they've come to love." -- Anthony Bourdain, ''Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly''
Definitely something I noticed during my college shadowing. And even more reason why a professional culinary career in the kitchen is looking more distant...
