Talk:Chef/Archive 3

Tools of the trade
Kitchen utensils used by chefs are tools used daily in commercial kitchens. They must be scrupulously clean and in excellent working order. This is the chefs responsibility. They are grouped as follows

· Knives · Kitchen utensils

Chefs Knives

Knives are expensive, delicate tools. They are available in many sizes, for many uses. The chefs knife should be made of high grade, rust free steel.

Types

· Chefs Knife                       Butcher knife · Bread Knife                       Meat Slicer · Filleting knife · Boning Knife                      Cheese slicer · Turning Knife                     Paring Knife · Peeler · pallet knife

Kitchen Utensils for chefs

Ladles Lifters · Spider                           Roasting spatula · Sauce ladle                      Stir fry spatula · Perforate skimmer                Fish Lifter · Soup ladle                       Rosti spatula

Whips Wooden Spoons

Wire whisk                        Wooden spoon Balloon whisk                     Slotted wooden spoon Machine whisk                     Stirrer Banded whisk                      Spatula for Teflon

Spatulas Forks

Palette knife                     Delicatessen fork Offset spatula                    Pot fork Rounded tip turner                Bayonet meat fork Square tip turner                 Carving fork

Speciality Chef Knives

· Oyster knife        Demidov knife             Butter curler · Grapefruit knife    Decorating knife          Radish cutter · Cheese knife        Swivel bladed peeler      Dough switchblade · Mezzaluna           Citrus zester

These are the tools of a professional chef.

Chefs have occupied an important role in society from the 5th century BC onwards and in the |Middle Ages, with the creation of chef guilds, they constituted a hierarchical community. In France, in the reign of Henry IV, chef guilds split up into several branches; rotisseurs were responsible for la grosse riande (the main cuts of meat), patissiers dealt with poultry, pies and tarts, and vinaigriers made the sauces. The traiteurs (caterers) included the master chefs, the cooks and the porte-chapes (the chape was a convex cover to keep the food hot), and they had the privilege of organizing weddings and feasts. These chefs’ cuisiners (head cooks), as they were now called, served a period of apprenticeship, at the end of which they created a masterpiece of meat or fish.

High-ranking chefs were revered, and some of them, like Taillevent, were raised to the nobility. The most famous of all was undoubtedly Careme. 84.71.172.190 (talk) 09:28, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Cook link
whoever has access to edit this locked article needs to change the link to cook in similar jobs section at the bottom of the box on the right with the picture. Right now it links to Cook, when it should link to Cook_(profession). I would do it myself, but someone found this article so important as to lock it... as if there is an underworld of anti-chef vandals. Either way, it needs fixing. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.112.45.171 (talk) 17:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Master chef
Shouldn't Master Chef be mentioned in the article as well? I guess it's equivalent to Chef de Cuisine, but I'm not an expert :-) Kvsh5 (talk) 06:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

the word 'chef'NZMikeG (talk) 04:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
While I agree with the body off the article and the descriptions of the various roles in a kitchen - at least as they were in the first half of the twentieth century - I think the opening comments about the word 'chef' itself are wrong.

Firstly the article states: "A chef is a person who cooks professionally. In a professional kitchen setting, the term is used only for the one person in charge of everyone else in the kitchen — the "executive chef." and shortly after, begins to list the many roles which are ALL called 'chef" = eg chef de partie, chef saucier, etc.

Even in common parlance the word is now regularly used in place of 'cook' and NOT just as a shortened version of 'executive chef'. Within a kitchen, though, it was for a long time courtesy to refer to the executive/head chef as just 'chef' rather then their name.

While not by any means a linguist, it seems beyond doubt that the word chef is the origin of the English word 'chief' and in French is applied to someone in charge of a process or premises. Hence there are also 'chef de mission' (manager of a sports team), chef de gare (station master/station manager) etc. Hence in a large hotel such as the Savoy where Escoffier redefined the kitchen brigade, a 'chef' was in charge of a function. It might be the whole kitchen ("chef de cuisine") or a smaller part of it - "chef rotisseur".

Further, the article states that "A commis is an apprentice in larger kitchens" while this is sometimes true in smaller kitchens, a commis was a highly skilled person who had completed their apprenticeship and was now performing that skilled role under a chef de partie. A large 'partie' or section, would have specialists. For example the chef pâtissier might have a 1st commis and second commis doing just confectionery - and the apprentice would be working and learning from those commis. This is how it was on the odl Queen Mary in the heyday of transatlantic liners, and I would guess on the Titanic, too!

In the latter 20th century, as kitchen brigades reduced in size, the original use of the words modified. But the above is a better description of a pre-war brigade and makes more sense in terms of the French derivations.

04:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)NZMikeG (talk)

Don't White House chefs wear gloves?
I notice that while the guy who prepares Peking duck wears gloves, none of the chefs in the two White House photos wears gloves. Is it a common practice not to wear gloves? 無聲 (talk) 01:37, 2 November 2012 (UTC)