Alex Rast wrote
>I will voice a philosophical disagreement here. In my view limiting your
>initial learning to a narrow range (of materials, techniques, etc...) risks
>setting notions in your head that become more difficult to escape from in
>the long run and develops skills along a particular direction that can be
>very hard to undo.

I think that is the reason that I found you to have limited and narrow
capabilities in your craft, I t think in your formative years your are
trained also in a narrow minded manner

I had experienced and seen similar individuals that have narrow range
of perspective that right at the start they want to work with the best
ingredient and they cannot tolerate if somebody who wants to exert
development of skills first on ordinary materials before trying out
different and advanced mediums.
IMO You are the kind of person who has prejudice to certain materials
and would not to touch it with a ten foot pole<grin>..

> If we start out learning as a "blank slate" a lot of the
>basic structure of that slate gets set in the early phase of learning and,
>once it's set, is difficult to change.

I would disagree on that, if you had grasped the science at the start
while gradually improving your skill you will never become a fanatic of
a certain medium. You are even open to cross training and
multi-skilling and trying out different ways how to interpret a recipe
a technique etc. . But from how I see in many of your post I presume
you have a narrow scope in your training. You are just a mere
tradesman
.. You will have difficulty seeing your craft from a higher vantage
point and be able to grasp the essence of things that no matter what
medium you use the principle remains the same..
I tell you as an example me , I had attended ' a sort of
apprenticeship'.in my younger years in part time kitchen work( while
studying in the university ) and one of my mentor/work supervisor ,
a highly skilled baker still drilled me on skill development even if
I had already a substantial experience in baking as a kid from my
mother instruction.
..He believe that my skill is still not good as I cannot equally work
effectively with other ingredients in the kitchen and would prefer what
I am used to previously. For example;
I prefer to work with butter for my croissants and disliked margarine;
nor I would use shortening also in some icing preparation as I find it
tasteless.
He kept seeing that many of my work is not to his standard and being
inflexible with ingredients is working against my skill development.

My supervisor who incidentally is also as former special forces
soldier and veteran of Vietnam war( one time called me in his office)
in order to enlighten me,change my mindset and therefore improved my
skills and be more productive..
He told me directly
Son you had talent for this craft but unfortunately your mindset is
narrow which prevent you from being flexible and therefore from
further improving your skill.
.. He tried to compare some of his previous soldiery training to
bakery craft and want me to recognize the similarity.
He said that as (a soldier) that in battle its not important (as
there are times) you have to strictly use your service rifle you
trained for to kill the enemy) but how can you effectively deliver the
task your superiors have ordered you to do.
.. There are times that You can use an enemy's weapons to kept on
fighting and defeat them with their own hardware.. As a soldier (he
told me ) when you are already well trained as a fighter, you should
familiarize and train also with your enemy's weaponry. That guy
claimed was an expert and flexible in handling wide assorted
weaponries including many small arms such as the M-16,M-14
rifles,shotguns, assorted carbines, the Chinese and Russian made AK-
47,AKM rifle the US Colt caliber 45, assorted revolvers and the
communist supplied sidearms) and claimed to have used those enemy
weapons in certain times. In infiltration and actual combat with the
North Vietnamese Army.
He emphasized what makes a special forces soldier different from a
common infantryman is the deeper & wider scope of training and cross
training and the ability to be not transfixed on what weapons (you are
supplied with or well trained) to be successful in combat.
That is one reason what makes them superior as a fighter compared to
an ordinary solider
Therefore he said to me:
What makes a superior baker or pastry chef is to be flexible and be
able to deliver what your boss wants you to do and get the job done.Be
open to cross training, baking is not limited to what you see in the
shops its more than that! Think about it!
If you are truly skilled, it does not matter what ingredients to use a
s you can get the goods done to keep your customers happy and his
business prosperous .
Besides there are wide range of customers and different product range.
Its not the ingredients that counts but what you can make from it and
what the customers wants for a certain price.
..
That pep talk had remained in my mind after I left that firm and
transferred to a series of shops (I kept it in my mind) and made me a
competent baker and a pastry chef and at the same time earning
university credits as chemist, and food technologist, which I had
ample time to apply such training in my succeeding employments In later
life also become manufacturing confectioner by still being interested
in cross training from confectionery schools.
I can in equal competence work in the home kitchen and in the food
research laboratory and in a industrial bakery/confectionery and even
other food processing plant such as prepared mix plant to the envy of
other tradesmen( including you Alex).

>that aren't compatible with new skills or materials, then one can end up
>spending more time "un-learning" ideas that only work for what you learned
>on in order then to re-learn with whatever new concept you've introduced.
>So, for instance, if you were working with shortenings you might get used
>to certain aspects of handling properties (a good example is that they have
>a much wider range of working temperatures, so the priority to work fast is
>relaxed), then essentially expect, if not mentally then from a standpoint

I don't agree with that either, I worked with wide variety of fats
flours, real chocolates and compounded ones, various . sugars and
other functional ingredients that only an extremely few bakers and
pastry chef ever had .
I can equally make assorted industrial bakery products as well as
gourmet artisanal varieties . Create ,develop and formulate assorted
products ranging from scratch to mixes from bakery to confectionery
from the small kitchen or laboratory scale to the production batches
..With these wide range of competence I did not unlearn anything ,
rather improved my flexibility, knowledge and market value as a
professional in food processing..

>of instinctive physical/mechanical movements, other ingredients to behave
>in like manner. It could then easily become very difficult to learn how to
>do it right with the new one (e.g. if you then switched to butter with
>narrow working temperature, you might not have developed the kind of
>coordination or mind-set to work as fast as you need, and so all your old
>experience would have to be jettisoned while you figured out how to move
*>quickly*).

I disagree on that either, In particular to this thread If I work with
butter I understand its peculiarities, how it differs from pure and
fractionated anhydrous milk fat,margarine and vegetable shortening.
I believe A good foundation in manipulative skills honed through
proper training, consistent practice and accompanied with the
intimate understanding of ingredient knowledge is what all it takes.
to succeed with any available materials.
If you start as blank slate, its better be that your mind is not
conditioned to BIAS on what is best or worse but as a professional
what is beneficial to your employers business.
As a trainee you have to set a long term goal and have specific
objective why you train for a certain craft. That will minimize your
bias against certain things If you look for it as a career then better
be broadminded, but you look at its as hobby then you can (stupidly
)perpetuate your prejudice against certain ingredients.
A mere hobbyist is usually a fanatic due to their inflexibility with
ideas and techniques.

An admonitions may not be appealing to young trainee but if she or he
had specific long term goal in mind he or she should set aside what I
call ' ONION SKINNED' behavior. and ego and follow the advice.
The poster ( Giggles ) I presume is a neophyte in cake decorating, and
therefore its her best interest for( if that what she want) her cake
decorating career to be focused on acquiring sound skills first than
collecting recipes which can only lead in confusion.

GET TO THE BASICS and BE GOOD AT IT AT THE START IS THE ESSENCE OF
GOOD LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION in any craft including baking and other
forms of cookery.

Inferior tutors try to impress the trainees with certain ingredients
and recipes initially; but that does not led to good skill development
at the start. They should be initiated with something which is simpler(
and that is using vegetable shortening) then later when they had
learned how to deal with it and be competent they can modify( the
medium )add butter to it, and finally try work with real stuff( 100%
butter).using different recipes.
And that is the way how proper training goes, in stepwise manner and
not in SPRINTS and JUMPS.
Therefore I don't see anything wrong with training with shortening or
cake dummy to practice one cake decorating skills. In my opinion a
good baking school want their students to be well grounded on
fundamentals than flooding their minds with recipes.

True competence in any field is the result of proper and sound training
and not what your capricious uncultivated minds tells you to do.