Vent thread

I have to buy 2 poster boards tomorrow for Thursday and next week as long as my packet won’t keep me busy because I don’t want to spend tomorrow on that and the poster the next day.

@Selaphiel  
That sounds dumb

@Mikey  

 
YOU DON’T MICROWAVE SALAD!

@Selaphiel  
Yeah, a cook is basically any guy who can cook food, either being a frycook on a greasy fast food joint or being a guy who cooks full meals on a cozy family restaurant.  
A Chef is a guy who studied and graduated on the art of cooking, has a degree and license acrediting him as a Chef and has many, many hours of brutal kitchen hours under his belt just to start earning the right to be adressed as a Chef.
 
I can cook damn well at the point I could perfectly work as a cook for a fancy family restaurant, but I would never go as far as to call myself a Chef, much less I would pretend I could work in a fancy multi stars restaurant.

@Anonycat  

 
Um no. The title of cook is not at all disconnected from chef. A chef is someone who cooks professionally. Cooks are professional chefs. Chefs are professional cooks. It means the same damn thing.
 
The distinction between chef and cook is entirely arbitrary.

@Anonycat  
@Sectioned  
The truth is somewhere between you both. A cook can be called a chef informally if good enough or considered that away amongst his peers and family etc. However it’s a tendency for the term chef to be reserved for someone who is the head cook of a hotel or restaurant, or at least someone who cooks well professionally. It also is a cultural thing. Some cultures are more lenient than others on who they will call a chef.
 
Cook, noun  
1 :  
a person who prepares and cooks food, especially as a job or in a specified way.  
“I’m a good cook”
 
Chef, noun
 
1 : a skilled cook who manages the kitchen (as of a restaurant)  
2 : COOK
 
They can be used exactly the same way, but chef is more often reserved for someone who busted their ass to prove their worth as a master of their craft.

@Sectioned  
Try working as a chef on a fancy hotel without the proper studies and tell me how well it ends up for you.

@Selaphiel  
IT’S FOKKING RAW!

@Anonycat  
Need some help moving those goalposts, there?

@Anonycat  
I think you 2 are having a “disagreement” that is really rooted in cultural differences and semantics, not whether or not you’d get far in a fancy hotel without proper diligence and education. (Which I agree, you wouldn’t.)

@Anonycat  
Though, I understand your passion; your respect for, and defense of what you regard as the true meaning of chefhood and culinary achievement is understandable and endearing, even if rather headstrong.

@Oliver_Hancock  
I suppose.  
As far I know, a chef is a guy who went to college to study cusine and graduated from it, and then goes to work at fancy restaurants, fancy hotels and fancy events preparing hi-level meals for them and having a whole kitchen staff at his disposal, but also carries a huge responsability on his back because if something goes wrong, all fingers will point to him.
 
A cook can cook food, either basic or home made, but do not have the chef’s advanced studies, and can work on eateries, family restaurants, cafeterias and catering services serving tasty meals, but that’s it.

@Anonycat  

 
That distinction is entirely arbitrary.
 
Chefs cook for a living. To say nothing of your qualifications or how good of a job you do. Or whether or not you are formally trained. You can be a self-trained chef. You can go into a culinary career with NO professional experience or formal education, that doesn’t mean you aren’t a chef.

I think cooks are responsible for preparing essential ingredients for the chef on the sideline. They’re more or less auxiliaries working on the menial stuff. While the chef are more the leading figures of the kitchen. They create and determine what goes out.

Again, as far I know, you can’t call yourself a chef and work as one unless you have a degree and a license accrediting you as one.  
I have worked in restaurants and fast food places, but not because of having that experience I would go around calling myself a Chef- in fact, I think that if I said that around a real Chef he would kick my ass.

@Anonycat  

 
You don’t.  

 
Yes you can. I don’t know who told you that but there’s absolutely no reason a restaurant can’t hire you as a chef without any professional experience or formal education. All you have to do is learn the recipes. Suppose you taught yourself everything you know, and don’t need any formal education or training. By your logic that automatically disqualifies you from working as a chef. Read: nonsense.

@Anonycat  
I tend to use it that way as well, certainly in a formal sense. However, informally between friends or just in certain cultures, many people aren’t really accustomed to this distinction, and it might even come off as snobby and lame.
 
For example, here in the hood I’m not sure how many people would make the distinction. (I live in one of the closet things Sioux City, Iowa’s got to a real ghetto; we have screaming, drunk, and homeless people walking around here all the time half the people are always broke and bumming cigarettes and change, or trying to score a dub sack on the regular. It ain’t like Chicago or North-side Omaha levels, though, so at least there’s that. :P ) Amongst most of those socioeconomically disadvantaged and stuck in a cycle of poverty, I find it more lenient on who they use superlative words like “chef” on. To the someone like my friend Ron, who grew up on hotdogs and boxed mac n cheese at home, a chef is someone who at least has a job in cooking, even if it’s a fry cook or someone working at a local diner who can make a wide variety of great food, whether or not to the standards of a fancy cook who went to school for it. There are many reasons why people don’t go to college or succeed in that regard, not all of them related to actual skill and knowledge set, nor work ethic. I certainly have a lot of respect for looking at it either way, and context matters a lot.

@Sectioned  
It depends on the restaurant. While there are surely many fine restaurants that don’t hire based on education level, there are certainly those that do require it. Many world renowned chefs studied in equally renowned culinary schools and there is, from what I can gather, a level of exclusivity in some very high level fancy restaurants.

When I regularly talk to someone, I’m paranoid that I’m annoying the shit out of them  
When I try to give it a break, I’m paranoid that they think I’ve forgotten about them
 
I don’t know what to do.

@Oliver_Hancock  
Yeah, I think you are right.  
For what’s worth, I’m from a Latinamerican country, and here a “Cocinero” (Cook) and a Chef are completely different jobs.  
You don’t need a license to be a Cocinero here, but you definitely need a college degree and a license to be recognized and then hired as a Chef here.

@Anonycat  
Ahh I see.

@Sectioned  
@Anonycat  
My goodness this seems to be a more heated argument than I thought it would be. Yes, the dictionary is clear that they can literally be used synonymously, but it simultaneously shows a distinction. News flash- there are more ways than one to look at something. Jamie Oliver and Guy Fieri never went to culinary school, and I’d never hesitate for a moment to call either a chef. In this regard, I can agree with Sectioned’s disapproval of anonycat’s logic. However, I agree with the underlying principle in what Anonycat is arguing, even if I don’t agree with the exact interpretation, I respect his opinion and agree that at least some distinction should be generally made.

@Anonycat  
Ooh fascinating! Thanks for the information. My internet has been slow/buggy tonight I didn’t see your last post til after I got my post to go through.

@Sectioned  
The only thing they sometimes ask you to work as a Cocinero here is having a Food Handling certificate, to get sure you know and understand all sanitary protocols involved with the job.  
If you don’t have one, you can sign for a free Food Handling course and get over with it on a few days.

@Labyrinthine  
Hugs I feel you. I grew up with high functioning autism/Aspergers syndrome, and didn’t know how to communicate as well back in my school days as I do now. So I got pretty depressed. As I became more self aware and understood more about how to communicate and such, I began to understood just how little I understtood. Meaning, I understood that there was a lot more to learn, and that frightened me as I became a bit paranoid and worried I was annoying the shit out of them. I knew that I used to annoy the shit out of people and I understood a few things that I did that made them feel that way, but I didn’t understand all of them and I was worried I still was. I still am sometimes. However, I have gained at least a modicum of confidence and I hope you do too. Good luck!