Too Many Cooks? Not Nearly Enough By Amanda Hesser

The Typical Cook

In her article, "Too Many Cooks? Not Nearly Enough," from NYC, Amanda Hesser states, "Cooking is an art, but working proficiently in a professional kitchen is a craft (Hesser, 4). Being a cook is a tough job. It's more than just cooking. It's also planning, managing, accommodating the needs of co-workers and patrons, and making the best of things when your pantry contains only a stick of butter, two sausages, and three carrots. The typical cook is a Caucasian male in his early 20's. In the article, "Missing: Great Women Chefs in New York," by Marian Burros, she explains that usually men outnumber women because women who want to be successful in the male dominated cooking world, must have a determination level that
surpasses all men and is willing to sacrifice spending time with family, children, and also having a social life (Burros, 2). The typical cook has arms with burn scars and cuts. He is approximately 5'10" and weighs 170 lbs. If lucky, he is educated with a degree from culinary schools like the Culinary Institute of America, or the French Culinary Institute, which upon graduation will almost guarantee a higher position in the field. According to Amanda Hesser, in her article, "Too Many Cooks? Not Nearly Enough," the average salary for the educated cook is around $35,000 with five years of previous experience (Hesser, 6). If not, the typical cook has no college education and worked throughout high school through many apprenticeships. Most of which are unpaid in the beginning, but once they did become paid, they earned entry-level salaries of less than $20,000. Cooks are hard working people who make lives of others more enjoyable. The following quote was spoken in the article, "Chef With a Side Dish: A Philosophy of Food," by Jane Gross. Ms. Waters, owner of Chez Panisse of California, commented, "Kids are starving, literally and figuratively. There is not punctuation in their day. They aren't included. They aren't being civilized in any important way. But we can bring them back to the table with something seductive, something that smells good and tastes delicious" (Gross, 2). Cooks are very friendly since they serve customers who carry stress and pain, as well as happy and joyful people. They are probably one of the more dependent people in everyone's lives since they provide services for everyone and usually make their days seem better.
Cooks are also very competitive and are extreme perfectionists. In a large, full-scale kitchen, there are many stations in which a cook could specialize. Sometimes more than forty cooks in a single restaurant compete for the best positions. A garde-manger is the lowest position while hot appetizers and pasta and risotto stations are of higher levels. The most wanted stations are the positions at the fish, meat and grill lines, where the main courses are prepared (Hesser, 3). Mr. Patel, owner of Zarole in Ridgewood, New Jersey, tells of his experience in an internship in France through John Foy's article, "What Stirred Young Chefs to Excel." "One day the chef had me in the freezer for two hours forming 200 scoops of ice cream into egg shapes. He didn't like one of the shapes, so he destroyed all of them and made me start over" (Foy, 3). The perfection that cooks must reach brings more pressure to their world of cooking. Cooks have to be organized and efficient, very well networked, and very patient. Amanda Hesser writes about this in her article, "So You Think Your Kitchen Is Small?" To be organized and efficient means to have decreased the amounts of extra equipment using only what is a necessity, streamlining their foods, and learning to take very efficient approaches to cooking (Hesser, 2). Next, networking can be very beneficial, but can also be very
destructive to a cook's future. Amanda Hesser says in her article, "Too Many Cooks? Not Nearly Enough," that having a good relationship with the chief executive chef can lead to a better job placement with other top restaurants when the time comes. However, if a cook leaves a job before completing the time the chef expected him to stay, word is going to spread fast and he could be blocked from working in other kitchens (Hesser, 3). In the patience aspect of their life, cooks have to endure long hours, hard physical labor, and mind numbing repetitions. Ms Cann Hamilton quoted on cooks, "You make this fantastic Jean Georges dish, but then you have to serve it 10,000 times" (Hesser, 4). Finally, cooks have to be extremely tough and determined. The kitchens that they work in can be a very dangerous place to be in. A high-powered, full kitchen is like a battlefield. There are fires and knives all over the place. Cooks get burned, cut, but they stay there to cook without dropping out. The typical cook is very devoted to his lifestyle.
When they first enter the profession, they usually work unpaid for several years only to gain the necessary experience to becoming a paid cook. Marian Burros talks about this in her article, "Long hours, No Pay: Only Chef Wannabes Need Apply." During his early career, he had to get up at 5 in the morning shave and shower thoroughly, take a long bus ride to the city, and run through a back alley into the kitchen. He then had to chop, stir, and clean up after everyone was done. All he received for his hard work was a small pat on the back by a fellow cook or a higher-level chef. He ends up burning his hands and arms, and is completely covered in chocolate and other sauces (Burros, 3). He goes home to his fiancé fourteen hours later that night where she is waiting for him to cook dinner. They haven't married because he has no money to support a family and no time to devote himself to her and possible children at this time. For now, they live with the support of the fiancés income living in a small studio apartment, with no car and little furniture, until he finds a decent paying
job. The typical cook is a man of devotion, toughness, and determination. Although working with no pay in the beginning, he travels throughout the city and possibly the world finding apprenticeships, covering as many stations in the kitchen as possible before moving on to study with other master chefs. Living in different countries give an advantage over other cooks. Richard Jay Scholem says this his article, "For Top Chefs, All Roads Lead to the Island." Gretchen Menser, a cooks that studied all over Europe, explains that exposure to so many different foods has helped him develop his palate, more so than the average chef (Scholem, 2). Also, Bon Appetit, a cooking magazine, has an excerpt that says, "Growing up, Hargrave was a fussy eater, but a trip to France at age 15 fixed that." This shows how international awareness of foods give greater advantage to the cook compared with other cooks that don't take the extra step. All cooks share similar backgrounds; worked during their teens from 7AM until midnight or so, doing the hardest and dirtiest kitchen jobs, waiting to being actually cooking real meals. The cooks that actually end up going to culinary schools, who want to continue their careers as professionals, have dreams of becoming owners of their own restaurant. "You don't go to culinary school because you love to cook. You go to culinary school because you love the restaurant business. Cooking is the easy part (Foy, 3). Amanda Hesser later described, "It takes careful planning and networking, years of sharp-elbowed ladder-climbing in the kitchen, and usually, a large financial investment on which the return will probably be slow (Hesser, 2). Therefore, cooking is not an easy career. Most typical cooks will end up having dreams of becoming owners and will prepare, through schools, and internships, to get to that level of planning, managing, and networking with everyone.