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The Training of Apprentices
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
How can we ever expect to have a thriving industry of young chefs entering our work place with enthusiasm and basic knowledge. Today here in Australia it is a shambles. The whole country has got no idea what is going on with the state that the hospitality industry is in. Chefs are in such high demand it's not funny, yet you cant find a good one anywhere. I can give proof to that statement too. I had recently run an add on seek.com.au for an apprentice chef award rates and a Sous Chef at $45,000-50,000 negotiable. I know it's not the best money out there but it is far from the worst We had one applicant for the apprentice position and seven for the sous chef position. Of which three were from over seas, two were only just qualified and two were out of the industry for years and looking to get back in. So there you have it a load of crap. Out of the seven only one would make the grade and coming from overseas would require a visa, which is not much help to our immediate future.
Anyway according to Julia Goodwin and her not so intelligent media people we should be doing fine as so many young chefs are signing up to become apprentices, yeah right pull the other one it's got bells on!! Full read on want a slice of masterchef Julie Goodwin
I have been trialling out some apprentices these past weeks, courtesy of some agency. To say they are of any use would be a lie. I have had 1st 2nd and 3rd year trials and the difference is nothing they are all crap.
I can only put this down to lack of training from qualified chefs out there, the lack of quality control at the training institute, the total inconsistent teaching and learning curriculum Australia wide and worst of all the wrong working kitchen/restaurants that apprentices are allowed to be placed into.
How the hell can we expect young chefs these days to learn the right way to produce food if they only open packets of ready made heat and serve foods?
We need to have in place a industry standard and that needs to be high enough, not to allow the abuse of young chefs, cheap labour basically to be enrolled into business that do not have the sound infrastructure of a good kitchen brigade that produce good quality food from raw materials and not packet quick fix commodities. On that note also, the suppliers these days should keep those so called great new products to the schools and clubs that can put them to good use knowing that they are not teaching a new bread of chef the wrong way. But I guess the supplier doesn't know a good sauce from a packet sauce or for that fact a good restaurant from a slop shop either so I rest my case there.
It is plain to see that the industry is fucked and if we it isn't changed soon then it's not going to worth dining out any time in the future because it will be just packet this and that for dinner, and as MasterChef Australia has just demonstrated anybody can cook and become the next best thing since Jamie Oliver. Somebody needs to do something.
I am open to any suggestions on how to save our industry so that when I retire I can still go and dine out with sound knowledge that I am getting a good meal from good fresh produce, created by qualified chefs. A dying breed...
3 comments:
It is far better to blame a system then to blame a person. The powers that be have decided to fill a void by making it easier to qualify. This is why it is now so hard to find decent staff, the new breed of chef is more about making it easy, not properly. There should be a distinct diffrence between a qualified can opener and a qualified chef. I beleve that it is the TV shows that have given us these useless cunts and that is where they get there insperation. Fuck they dont even teach them French terminology at TAFE. The next on the hit list is the consumer! those that dictate what they will pay not what it is worth. He who pisses and moans about price has no concept of quality. To the highly educated Fucktards who watch TV shows, and fail to realize that the presenter has all week to produce 1 or 2 dishes, with the aid of an entire crew behind the camera, wake the fuck up!!! To the cunts on camera thanks for empowering these arseholes to the point that they think they can do better. You know them the the cunts that tell you it not hard, "I cooked a dinner the other night for 10 people, 3 course & it was better" yes you! you little arse muncher if that is all I had to do I would shit all over you, try cooking for 200 CUNT! As far as I can tell the only way for the moment is to fix one fuckup at a time and hope that they to will pass on the knowledge of a dying art.
perhaps its a matter of hiring first years and bollocking the shit out of them until they are urs, a bit like putty..
u can mould them from the beginning... make them ur own... be hard on them, to prepare them for the big bad world out there.. and they're made just the way u like them!!
if they run away like pussies because there head chef is a meanie, they aren't meant for this industry and u did kitchens everywhere a favour for getting them out of it before wasting other chefs time with them.
Good comment Ballbag (I know that name from somewhere!! :)
First we break them, then we mould then!
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