THE PROFESSION OF CHEF

The Art of the Chef,

to prepare the tastiest, easily digestible, nutritious, and also healthy dishes from food by boiling, frying, steaming or other processes had already reached a high level in antiquity. Since, according to the ancient view, good nutrition was directly related to health, the cook often worked with doctors.

Culinary art came to Greece from the Asian countries and then to Italy.

Under the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius, there were already schools of culinary art. In ancient Rome, cooks were mostly slaves, mainly Greeks, who were taken prisoners of war. Cooks were popular and expensive, and the prices paid for good cooks were extremely high.

In the Middle Ages, the kitchen was particularly cared for and developed by the monasteries. Modern culinary art comes from Italy (around the 16th century) and was introduced to France from there by Catherine de Medici, who took her cooks to France when she married Heinrich.

French Cuisine

flourished for the first time at the court of Louis XIV. The most famous chef of the time was François Vatel, who committed suicide when at one point he was unable to cook adequately for his reign. With the end of the limitless willingness to spend by the nobility and royal court, who paid no taxes, as a result of the French Revolution, the chefs had to find new sources of income. They opened restaurants in which the wealthy bourgeoisie frequented. In the 19th century, therefore, French culinary arts recovered from revolution and crises. The rising bourgeoisie gradually democratized the kitchen with successes and setbacks.

For many decades

the most famous chefs often came from France. Bocuse, the Troisgros brothers, and Marc Haeberlin are all pupils of Fernand Point. They propagated a kitchen that turned fresh, high-quality food from the regions of their own country into cleverly arranged, tasty table delights. The nouvelle cuisine was based on similar ingredients as the diet cuisine: vegetables, steamed meat, and little fat.

The cooking story goes on and on ….. the most beautiful job in the world 🌎

I felt that I had to mention and give credit to today’s culinary geniuses such as Fredy Girardet 🇨🇭 and Hans Stucky 🇨🇭I had the pleasure to dine in the establishments of all the mentioned chefs in this post, and my favorite, most impressive one was at Paul Bocuse in Lyon, the second was The Haeberlin Brothers in Alsace, then Girardet in Renens, the fourth was Stucky in Basel.

Joel Kraaz👨🏻‍🍳

I don’t want to burst the bubble of any young person contemplating pursuing a career in the culinary field, however, this profession consumes and demands a lot of personal sacrifices. You will be working when everyone is off, and you will be off when everyone is working, including all holidays. In the beginning, You work long hours for a mediocre salary, until you work yourself up into a management position, or until you decide to own and operate your own business, which is even more demanding because now you cannot just punch in and out, you are on the hook for all the responsibilities owning a business brings with it. I have lived most of my life in the Hospitality business and wrote about it, you may read some of my posts on my website here. I wrote an ebook about the choices I have made as a chef, also available on my website in the online shop.

If you decide to take the path of a chef’s life, make sure you eat healthily, exercise a lot, and stay away from alcohol! I have seen many of my working friends fall into that trap.

Your blogging friend Ulrich Koepf