On 2010-07-04, Janet Baraclough > wrote:

> Usually, because commercially inexperienced people underestimate the
> high degree of professional skill it takes.

This has manifested itself in the fact that there are now so many
culinary schools, there is a surplus and graduates go a'begging. This
means existing kitchens and chefs need not accept rank beginners,
regardless of how cheap they are willing to work for. Many chefs will
not accept a newhires unless they HAVE had some culinary schooling.

I worked with a "cook" that had several years experience and was
already working part time for a celebrity chef (an Iron Chef USA
contestant) in said chef's restaurant. That chef advised this young
man go to culinary school, recommending his old alma mater
(Johnson&Wales, Denver). The cook went, claiming he'd never break out
of the cook ranks until he did.

nb