On the Ethical Treatment of Cooks

Sometimes this happens to you:

-You're on the fish station. The night has been a mess. Last night you stayed out with that cute hostess, drinking rum (which you don't even like) and smoking camel lights. (which you really, really don't like.) This morning you woke up and tried to drink a cup off coffee, but just threw up instead. When you stumble into work, you find out that a dishwasher and the grill guy called out sick--they were at the bar with you the night before. The chef has called in 'b-teamers' to cover. Meat came in late, so you get to butcher two rib-eyes and twenty dollar a pound snapper--both of which you get a poor yield on. Service starts, and you realize you didn't cut enough shallots. Around nine, you 86 snapper--but not before you burned seven portions. Your chef looks at your sweaty face, cracked lips, and stained jacket, and screams at you like he has never screamed before. The kitchen goes silent, and you take your beating.

Or:

-You're on the fish station. You've been killing it all night. Last night you stayed late and scrubbed any carbon off your fish pans, then went home and read McGee's chapter on fish. Waking up in the morning, you had your coffee, flipped through A Passion For Seafood, then headed to work. The 'a-team' is in full effect--a group so tight that obscure hand gestures and mono-syllabic grunts are enough to communicate through the entire night. The group finishes prep early, makes family meal, and begins service. The snapper special has been so popular, and so perfectly cooked and plated, that around nine you only have three portions left. Your chef walks down to your immaculate station, and screams at you like he has never screamed before. The kitchen goes silent, and you take your beating.


Every menu around nowadays has some line about how they use sustainable and humanely raised produce/meats and seafood. So why is the staff being treated so poorly? A cook I worked with once said "Cooking is the last frontier--a place where you can say almost anything." Almost all the chefs that I know came from yelling kitchens. Old school chefs, especially those who embrace the military aspect of brigade cooking see yelling as their duty--a way of keeping their pirate ship from turning to mutiny. They would tell stories about their days--crazed chefs in coffee filter hats throwing copper like it was a frisbee.
When my pastry school instructor at culinary school told me about his mentor, he said that he thought the man had killed someone before. I laughed. He didn't. Despite alleged homicidal tendencies, alot of chefs and cooks alike think that the former abuse helped them become the chefs they are now. For me, the yelling changed me in two ways:

1. In trying to avoid these miserable nights on the line, I wrote lists, and planned, and obsessed about work. My technique improved, and so did my awareness. When I did get yelled at, I listened to every word...sometimes sheepisly asking advice on how to avoid this in the future. I began to understand the need for intensity in the kitchen.
   
2. And I started yelling too.
   

The first few times you run a kitchen, you are never in control. You don't speak loudly enough, and get your tickets messed up, and send food to the wrong tables. It's scary. If you have menu items coming off your station, it's really scary. I dont remember how I started yelling, but I noticed that it was effective. And I could barely control it.

I started to feel like cooks younger than me, with less experience should have to go through what I did...that they had to pay dues. I thought it would make them better. Sometimes it was a good cop/bad cop routine to make a cook get their shit together: I would go in and yell, and Rossi would come in after me and help them put it all back together again.

It wasn't always fair though. Cooks that I respected wouldn't get yelled at--and there were times where some serious shit would go down with one of them, and they would get a pass. It was as if I thought that the stronger cooks deserved a different level of respect. The kitchen would fragment...and there were nights where the cracks would really start to show.

On one particularly hard night, I came to a realization. On my best nights running the kitchen, I never yelled. Everything ran smoothly, and mistakes were few. Cooking was supposed to be fun. My favorite moments had been talking to new cooks about what we were doing...why I thought we were at least. It was my craft. It was meant to be taught to less experienced cooks.

There are some chefs that believe if they let up on their staff, things will unravel--that everyone will begin to get comfortable and feel entitled to a certain type of behavior...and in some ways I agree with them. A cook that hasn't been dressed down in some form or another might have a dangerously enflated ego...or might not be responsive when they are disciplined. The cooks I respect say it's not their style...that trust and friendship are the only ways to build a successful brigade.




notes.
-i got a box from my mom today that contains pictures, letters, and mementos from when I was 11-22. It was like getting a time capsule, and kinda strange to look through.
-so, so chilly today.
-kentucky bourbon is better than irish whiskey. there, i said it.
-iphone 3g. now im one of them.
-zombies cant swim, but they can make zombie dolphins
-to all young cooks: try not to touch your fingers to the racks inside the oven. those things are hot.

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