CHEF BY NAME

I can think of no other industry where all the employees go by the same name, with the exception maybe of King.

Hello king, oh hey king how’s it going have you met king over here.

Well that’s how it is in the catering industry, certainly in England.

In America and France I’m led to believe one has to rise through the ranks grafting hard over many years until finally one day you have earned the right to be called chef. In England this is not the case.

In England the moment you walk into a professional kitchen for the first time, the moment you slide your arms into the white jacket, the first time you pick up a knife you are essentially agreeing to change your name as permanently as if you had paid to do it by deed pole.

Chef becomes your new title, your new name, what you will be known as for the rest of your career if not life.

You may imagine this can get a little confusing under the pressure of a Friday night service in a small hot firey enclosed space filled with knives and testosterone but actually it works just fine.

How’s that chicken coming chef? Coming in two minutes chef. How about you chef, do you have the sauces I asked for? Yes chef, I’m just waiting on the onions from chef.

In a well oiled kitchen everyone knows their place, everyone knows their role and everyone knows their name when it’s called.

After work when all are congregated in the local bar for a drink do we revert back to our civilian names, do we once more become John and Frank and Mike. The answer is no we do not as those names no longer exist.

We are all called chef.

Sometimes as a show of informality you may here us calling each other Cheffry or Chefton but at the end of the day that is just a nickname, as common as shortening Philip to Phil or Richard to Rich, except in reverse.

There have been people I have worked with over the years whose birth given name’s I have never known.

Chef is not just a job title like cleaner or bank manager. It is not just a description of what we may do for a living. Chef is an identity. Chef is who we are and Chef is the proud name we take when converting to the religion that is professional cooking.