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  #41 (permalink)   Report Post  
Scott T. Jensen
 
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Default The seven major cuisines of the world?

"Alex Rast" > wrote:
> (Scott T. Jensen) wrote :
> >How would one go about getting a chef that could handle
> >all cuisines in the world AND do them right?

>
> That's not what you're looking for or need in a chef. It's
> unrealistic to expect someone to be an expert in every
> type of cuisine known. Far more important is this person's
> basic skill and creativity, which can overcome gaps in
> specific knowledge, their ability to find and hire people
> who *do* have the specific skills in cuisines and
> techniques which they themselves don't have, and the
> ability to manage and run a professional kitchen.


Alright. So how would one go about getting this type of a chef and knowing
which is the best of those that apply?

Scott Jensen
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  #42 (permalink)   Report Post  
Blair P. Houghton
 
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Default The seven major cuisines of the world?

Scott T. Jensen > wrote:
>Hypothetical situation: Your kitchen services a boarding school with
>children from around the world.
>
>What would be considered the seven cuisines these chefs would cover?


Pizza
Ice Cream
Milk
Cheeseburgers
Potato Chips
Snickers
Coke.

--Blair
"Kids, q.v."
  #43 (permalink)   Report Post  
Tom Royer
 
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Default The seven major cuisines of the world?


"Julia Altshuler" > wrote in message
news:IfGhc.216$w96.87765@attbi_s54...
> Default User wrote:
> > Julia Altshuler wrote:
> >
> >>Scott T. Jensen wrote:

>
> The best chef in the world can't
> >>transform 2nd rate ingredients, and even someone with little experience
> >>or talent can make a good meal with excellent ingredients.

> >
> >
> >
> > I disagree strongly. A talented chef knows his or her ingredients and
> > can use those talents to bring out the best in even lesser ingredients,
> > while an inexperienced person can turn easily a beautiful piece of meat
> > into inedible shoeleather or nice fresh vegetables into overcooked mush,
> > all it improperly seasoned.

>
>
> I suppose this all hinges on how bad the 2nd rate ingredients are and
> how bad the bad cook is. If the 2nd rate ingredients are spoiled meat,
> rotting vegetables, Velveeta cheese, spam, okra and beets,


Hey, I like Velveeta cheese, spam (well, maybe not), okra and beets

>even the best
> chef will have a bad time. If the bad cook burns good ingredients to a
> charred mass, then adds 3X too much salt, well, you get the idea.
>
>
> --Lia
>



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  #44 (permalink)   Report Post  
Alex Rast
 
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Default The seven major cuisines of the world?

at Thu, 22 Apr 2004 04:00:37 GMT in >,
(Scott T. Jensen) wrote :

>"Alex Rast" > wrote:
>> (Scott T. Jensen) wrote :
>> >How would one go about getting a chef that could handle
>> >all cuisines in the world AND do them right?

>>
>> That's not what you're looking for or need in a chef. It's
>> unrealistic to expect someone to be an expert in every
>> type of cuisine known. Far more important is this person's
>> basic skill and creativity, which can overcome gaps in
>> specific knowledge, their ability to find and hire people
>> who *do* have the specific skills in cuisines and
>> techniques which they themselves don't have, and the
>> ability to manage and run a professional kitchen.

>
>Alright. So how would one go about getting this type of a chef and
>knowing which is the best of those that apply?
>
>Scott Jensen


References. If the person making the hiring decisions has no knowledge of
the field for which the position is being filled, he's going to have to go
to the potential employee's former employers and ask them how he worked
out. That'll give the best read on how qualified he is. If he has a good
track record already (e.g. stints at several visibly successful
restaurants), that's also a good sign.

Ideally, the hiring person can ask his own acquaintances if they're aware
of anyone. A referral is usually a better candidate than a cold call. When
you consider that very few of the good chefs have any need to respond to
open hiring advertisements, you can get a sense of the quality of the field
you can expect if you do place advertisements and get cold resumes.

It's questionable whether someone who has no knowledge whatsoever in a
particular field should be hiring in that field, but there are times when
people get put in that position. That's pretty much what references are for
- it's about the only way someone uneducated in the profession can get a
realistic assessment of the candidate's potential.
--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)
  #45 (permalink)   Report Post  
Koko
 
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Default The seven major cuisines of the world?

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 22:36:56 -0500, "Scott T. Jensen"
> wrote:

>Hypothetical situation: Your kitchen services a boarding school with
>children from around the world. The headmaster has told you to hire seven
>chefs and each specialize in one of the seven major cuisines of the world.
>Each chef runs the kitchen once a week and uses the rest of the week to
>prepare for next time. The idea is to give the vast majority of the
>students from all the different parts of the world a weekly taste of home as
>well as expose them to other cuisines. Having said all that...
>
>What would be considered the seven cuisines these chefs would cover?
>
>My guess is:
>European (from Iceland to Russia to Italy)
>African
>Middle Eastern
>South Asia (India region)
>East Asia (from China to Japan to Singapore)
>Pacific (including Australia and New Zealand)
>American
>
>Scott Jensen



Scott,
You have been given some very clever ideas.
Personally, I think you should market this to a major t.v. network
presenting some of the possiibilities mentioned here, you would have
a very popular reality t.v. show.

Koko
A Yuman being on the net
(posting from San Diego)


  #46 (permalink)   Report Post  
Scott T. Jensen
 
Posts: n/a
Default The seven major cuisines of the world?

"Alex Rast" > wrote:
> It's questionable whether someone who has no knowledge
> whatsoever in a particular field should be hiring in that field,
> but there are times when people get put in that position.


At least one other in this thread has suggested that the person hire a chef
consultant to find the right chef for the school. Is this a viable idea?
It would seem better than the clueless person picking the chef. If so,
where would one find such chef consultants? Is there one considered the
best of them? If not, how would one determine which one to go with?

Scott Jensen
--
Got a business question, problem, or dream?
Discuss it with the professionals that hang out at...
misc.business.consulting, misc.business.marketing.moderated
misc.business.moderated, and misc.entrepreneurs.moderated


  #47 (permalink)   Report Post  
Alex Rast
 
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Default The seven major cuisines of the world?

at Fri, 23 Apr 2004 16:22:10 GMT in >,
(Scott T. Jensen) wrote :

>"Alex Rast" > wrote:
>> It's questionable whether someone who has no knowledge
>> whatsoever in a particular field should be hiring in that field,
>> but there are times when people get put in that position.

>
>At least one other in this thread has suggested that the person hire a
>chef consultant to find the right chef for the school. Is this a viable
>idea?


I think this is only an idea to consider if the person hiring feels so
overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task that they're unwilling to face it.
Otherwise, you're running into several problems:

1) The person making the choices is now increasingly distanced from the
source of the need. You're involving a third party, coming into a situation
without the kind of prior knowledge the original hiring person might be
expected to have, nor the level of familiarity with the particulars of the
place involved.

2) Any consultant is going to have their own ideas as to what constitutes a
good chef, which may or may not agree with the hiring person's. By this I
don't mean the types of qualifications that make for good selection
criteria, but rather the nature of the results expected at the end of the
day from the chef. For instance, which of the following goals is most
important - producing food that is consistently up to a certain high
quality standard, being able to have meals ready within a fixed time frame,
or producing meals within some specified budget? The consultant may well
value one skill over the other, where the original hiring person had a
different skill prioritised.

3) You are, essentially, creating a second job where only one was asked
for. That's more money on the payroll. Either the institution has to be
willing to shell out even more money, or the dollars that might otherwise
have been used to attract better chef talent will go to the consultant.

4) Consultants seem to have a tendency to be the people who were unable to
do the thing they consult about directly with real success. In other words,
the also-rans. As a result their skills are often less than what you'd
really need, and frequently they lack the clout or connections to draw any
really top talent. Also-rans tend to attract also-rans.

5) You still haven't solved the fundamental problem of how you make a
hiring decision. You've merely shifted it one level up - to the problem of
how you pick a good consultant. This isn't any easier than picking the
chef, so you haven't improved your position at all. In fact, if anything,
you've made it worse because ultimately the hiring decision must be made by
the person originally charged with it - a consultant can only recommend,
not decide - and so there are now 2 decisions to make - how do you find a
consultant? and is this person that the consultant recommends really good?

If the person in charge of hiring literally doesn't know where to start, I
think the problem is much more fundamental than that of who do you hire - I
think the problem is that no one at the institution has taken the time to
examine and define what, exactly, they're looking to achieve. They're
simply proceeding forward on a vague idea with no clear plan and no
organisation. If this is the case, the first thing would be to sit down all
the interested parties and spend several sessions deciding what, exactly,
people are looking for. I think out of those meetings a much more specific
job description and selection process would crystallise, and the person in
charge of hiring would be able to proceed forward with vastly more
confidence in what he was doing.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)
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