SC - Chef's training

[Christine A Seelye-King]

>The fact that  ao-called professional cooking schools fail 
>dramatically in teaching their students the most fundamental of skills
>is appalling enough.
>That this pre-frozen, commercialized half-knowledge of basic cooking 
>skills has filtered into the general populace is appaling. :-(
>
>Ras

I would like to comment here.  I participated in a 3 year apprenticeship
with the American Culinary Federation.  I worked in a full - service
hotel kitchen(s) and attended classes once a week.  I was trained in
butchering, banquets, garde-manger, short order, classic French, pastry,
kosher, and many other food styles.  It was not set up as a school, and I
had to go find the training at work most of the time (usually "If you
show me how to do that I will help you" worked famously).  I regard
myself as a fully trained chef.  However, I worked with folks that had
attended cooking schools (CIA, Johnson and Wales,) and noted a couple of
things.  If they had gone into the school with some previous cooking
expeince, they came out really well trained.  However, if they went into
school with no previous experience, they were a detriment to a cooking
line.  They had no concept of how to put the class learning they had into
practice on a day-to-day basis.  Making beautiful food that comes out in
a timely fashion was difficult for them, and they also had more attitude
to sling (IMO). 
Sorry, you pushed a button.  (Hmm, and I haven't cooked in the industry
for over 10 years now...).  But I know I got a complete education, even
if I did have to go looking for it a good bit of the time.  I also had
the SCA to mold my research and developement skills, which helped a great
deal.  And, I still consider myself to be learning all the time
(especially from this list!:)
Hopefully any cooking school graduates on the list will forgive my rant. 

Mistress Christianna MacGrain

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