I seem to recall back in the day that you weren’t allowed to call yourself Chef unless you met certain requirements. I have no idea what those requirements were or if this was an actual thing. Nowadays, it seems like the title is just tossed around on anybody who can add a pinch of red pepper flakes to a bowl full of spaghettios. Did Food Network bastardize the term to the point that it no longer means anything?
Usually a chef is considered to be someone with a culinary degree or specifically trained under chef, but as far as I know there’s never been an overall accrediting organization concerned with verifying who is a true chef and who is just a cook.
I know Rachael Ray, as an example, has said before that she does not consider herself a chef and on the show Worst Cooks in America, Anne and the chefs from previous seasons always wore chef’s jackets while Rachael wears street clothes.
There are certification agencies for various chef titles - Certification Designations
But I don’t think they’ve ever been universal or even highly desirable. Someone who runs a kitchen, prepares the menu, and oversees an operation is generally considered a chef, but there are many levels of chefs and no real guidelines on who can call themselves one. I don’t think requirements has ever really entered into it.
Long time professional cook here. I don’t think it means what it used to. Nowadays anyone on the line can and will refer to themselves as “chef.” But for a couple hundred years prior to that, it took many many years of hard work and discipline to rise to that rank. It used to mean that you had mastered and could still do every job in the kitchen, had rigorously trained under other chefs, had taken on different responsibilities slowly under the watchful eye of said chefs, and finally received your toque as an acknowledgement of your skill and dedication. This process often took 20-30 years.
Not to say this entire process is necessary or required to achieve this level of mastery, but it’s necessary to note that there are many many people these days who have not put in a fraction of this effort and are referred to, and refer to themselves, as “chef.”
Perhaps it’s just modern sensibilities, but the process you describe strikes me as absolutely ludicrous.
For comparison purposes, here’s the result of a quick search on apprenticeships for electricians–
Now, it seems to me that being a well-trained electrician would be considerably more desirable than being a well-trained chef. Mistakes with electricity are vastly more likely to have highly unpleasant consequences. But here we have authorities saying that four years is all that’s needed.
I have a very strong suspicion that a multi-decade process to be a “chef” was almost certainly the result of people who had already “arrived” deciding to artificially limit the competition.
For that matter, it takes far less than 20 years of preparation to become a heart surgeon, or any one of numerous jobs where the stakes are extremely important, sometimes literally life and death.
There’s a distinction, though. A chef - there’s a bit of a clue in the name - isn’t just very good/competent/skilled/experienced at every aspect of the culinary arts himself; he hires, leads and manages a team which includes people who are themselves respected professionals. This isn’t implicit in a qualification like “electrician”. “Electrician”, if you like, is analogous to a graduate-entry-level position; “chef” is a senior executive position.
In formal parlance a chef is the head of the kitchen and you only have one chef per restaurant. Due to the fact that chef has come to mean anyone who cooks real chefs have started to use the term “Executive Chef”.
In days gone past when rich people lived in large houses with numerous members of staff the chef was a very important roll since the food they prepared was one of the main ways a host impressed their guests. As a result a Chef oftentimes made more than the butler, whom the chef technically worked under.
Not to mention that in the really olden days, you’d want to pay the person who prepared your food more than than the people who would pay him to poison it.
That. A chef doesn’t only need to be an (hopefully) excellent cook, and preferably creative enough to attract customers, he must almost a good manager for quite a large staff, good at public relations, a good planer, good at budgeting, etc…
You can’t compare him to an electrician, not even to a heart surgeon. The equivalent of a chef in an hospital would rather be the head of a department.
And as far as I know, there’s no existing schooling that will bring you directly to the “chef” level. The training process is to learn the job in lower positions under a chef and having your talent recognized while doing so. I don’t think that, say, an upscale hotel would ever hire a chef that hasn’t proved himself over the years.
A chef aspires to be an artist at his craft; hopefully an electrician doesn’t.
Soyer, who was by way of being a great man anyway ( did a lot of good ) came from de Polignac’s kitchens ( revolutionaries entered and killed two kitchen workers, just because ) over to work for the Duke of Cambridge, and then on to the Reform Club plus revamping the catering of the entire British Army.
And I miss those careless, unfussy days: regard the mid-19th century chap in this painting by Théodule Ribot : referenced in Wikipedia’s Chef article. How many restaurants today would have a large friendly Ginger toying with the fish being prepared, laying on the floor ?
In this discussion, good points, all: I would just contribute: Chef=Chief. In my world and parlance, a Chef is le Chef de la Cuisine…in other words, the kitchen boss. No more, no less (necessarily).
Julia Child was an educated, scientific cook. She was never a chef–and this is not derogatory–she worked for herself, her family, and her books and tv shows. A Chef is a sort of manager. Julia’s friend Jacques Pepin was a chef, at least sometimes; he ran, managed, headed commercial or large private kitchens.
In the same way, though I spend a good deal of time studying the culinary arts lately, I’ll never be a chef…well, unless I snap up a cute restaurant going out of business. But I could get the chops to go toe to toe with Grant Achatz, and still not be chef du cuisine unless and until I had a brigade of line cooks, etc., answering to me.
It’s the difference between “electrician” and “master electrician”. Someone who’s just finished his apprenticeship/trade school is what used to be called a journeyman - becoming a master at any trade takes much longer. A cook has to be able to prepare a menu, shop for ingredients and cook. A chef has to be able to train others, to get others to do the shopping and cooking to the chef’s satisfaction; a chef has to be able to delegate. He’s a cook, but also a manager.
I watch a lot of Chopped, sadly addicted for now, and I think a lot of times it’s simply showing deference to make points, at least on that show. 2 of the judges, men, and the names escape me, seem to demand almost slavering adoration.
Bolding mine.
Parkerhouse or crescent? If he / she was plump enough I suppose they could be a pork roll. 
Most excellent typo. I got a good chuckle out of it.
If anyone is interested in knowing the difference between a chef and a cook, I recommend watching the 1998 documentary “Boiling Point,” which followed Gordon Ramsay during the first several months of the opening of his first (and eventually a 3 Michelin Star) restaurant. A chef doesn’t necessarily cook – instead, his role is that of a manager and organizer. His job is to get the line cooks, kitchen staff, and front of house staff to work together in produce a dining experience for the customers (Ramsay once described the job done by waiters as “theater”).
We need to hear from that crusty old Alaskan dude.
Not a typo. Just a bad pun.
That would not be a usefull comparion, for the chef / surgeons/ department heads I’ve known. Not “wrong”, but too prescriptive.
Not all chefs are employed as department heads, and not all department heads have any particular skills. And of course surgeons run their kitchens, though they don’t manage them.
What I find interesting is the change in meaning of executive chef. Previously, an executive chef worked for a group of restaurants and was more in charge of management than day to day cooking. The actual chef at any one restaurant would be the chef de cuisine. Executive chef was what you did when you were older and couldn’t deal with the actual stress of running a kitchen. Now anybody who runs a kitchen is an executive chef, even if they’re the only one cooking.