Catering Careers - Do You Have What It Takes?

So you feel that you have it in you – the intense desire to be a chef. You love food, and you also love to prepare it. You feel that you have the instinct for the right ingredient for any dish which your pregnant imagination may cook up. You are very much interested in every nuance of flavor or spice. But chances are, you are not a chef at the moment (at least not a certified one), or you are still struggling through the ranks in an attempt to make your mark. The intense competition in this industry is easily illustrated in the popular television show, the Iron Chef series., wherein celebrated chefs Hiroyuki Sakai and Chen Kenichi enjoy prestige every week, what with their faces seen by thousands in television, as either a budding cook or a very seasoned chef pits his wits and talent against these in-house champions, in a one-hour cooking brawl which centers a fused entrée around a common theme ingredient.

You may think that it’s just the commercialised part of the industry, but you will be surprised to see how close the show comes to reality. Being a great chef leads to recognition, usually among the whose-who of society, which means good business for your kitchen, and, at the extreme, a TV show deal, a book, and other merchandise under your name as well. Well, you guessed it. There is no fast track to becoming a full-fledged chef. The reality is it takes a lot of determination, talent, and know-how to become a chef. Maybe you’ve come from a long line of great cooks which runs in your family. Maybe it’s innate in you because of the culture you’ve grown up with. Consider yourself lucky. But it doesn’t matter where you’re coming from; there are a lot of things to learn before you make it.

There are at least three things that you have to possess if you want to be a recognized chef. First, you should have an intense passion when it comes to food. You must have a deep sense or knack for coming up with unique recipes however strange or experimental, and you should be open to mistakes that you may make along the way, because it comes with the process. Whether you’re approach towards food is sensual or spiritual, you’re attitude should come close to that of an appreciation for the highest forms of art.

You need a good course in the culinary arts. Enrolling in a course enhances and fine-tunes your knowledge in food preparation. It lets you find gaps in your style or loopholes in your understanding about food and knowing thus you will be able to correct it. Plus a degree in culinary arts gets one foot in the door to your career. The culinary industry is also very corporate in structure. There are rungs you have to climb before you reach the top.

You need experience. You may have been exposed to great dishes being prepared right in front of you when you were young, and good food runs in the family. You’ll have a feel for the basics and probably much, much more. Or you’ve spent years as an apprentice, under the wing of a celebrated mentor. That’s probably the best way to learn, because you’ll now a lot more about the industry than what’s in the textbooks. Or you could start from scratch and struggle your way to the top. Although this could be a very difficult trial-and-error process, it gives you a deep sense of fulfillment once you’ve tried and succeeded.