Abstract:
“They have no way of escaping from this life, for they cannot save a penny from their wages, and working sixty to a hundred hours a week leaves them little time to train for anything else” (Orwell, 1933, p. 23).
As George Orwell observes above, there have long been several barriers to re-engaging education for a cook, particularly long hours and low pay. While there are few academic studies of cooks’ post-cooking transition, there is an observable trend towards youth in kitchens (Lethlean, 2003; Parkinson & Green, 2002). The ‘old’ cook is conspicuous by their absence. This provides a tension: cooks stop cooking professionally many years before retirement age, but the culture and systems of kitchens may provide hurdles for this transition.
Cooking professionally is demanding in many ways. The nature of the work, the heat, split shifts and the number of hours worked are physically gruelling. Placement of hours, predominantly at night, limits a ‘normal’ life. The high work output and abuse can be mentally and spiritually draining. The comparatively low level of pay reduces personal options including access to formal education.
Cooks do not always plan their exit from kitchens and, ultimately, career cooking. The lack of career planning is evidenced in how cooks often leave kitchens mid-shift, discretely (an apron left crumpled on the floor without an owner to fill it), or conspicuously (with loud expletives and verbose posturing) (Sheehan, 2002). Just another cook walking out of another kitchen; these actions are normally unplanned, just knee-jerk reactions to one request too many (Fine, 1996). It is not an industry that follows up with an exit interviews.
I was interested in studying how other cooks fared post-cooking, particularly with re-engaging education. Although some authors, writing of the American system, believe that cooks should ideally plan their vocational and educational careers (Brefere, Drummond, & Barnes, 2006), Fine (1996, p. 49) observes how realistically “cooking lacks a career trajectory”. Therefore, cooks are more likely to react to, rather than plan for, steps in their progression both within and beyond hospitality. This may be implied through the seemingly unlikely transitions from sous chef to bricklayer’s labourer, from executive chef to fishmonger or, from pastry chef to university student. The anecdotal trend from professional cooking to unskilled labouring is surprisingly common: hands-on work, shorter hours, and better pay. The fishmonger shows a similar example, but with the addition of identifying a niche and using transferable craft-skills to financial benefit. Neither requires going back to school. The final example is an anomaly: a cook re-engaging with formal education and studying at university-level.
As George Orwell observes above, there have long been several barriers to re-engaging education for a cook, particularly long hours and low pay. While there are few academic studies of cooks’ post-cooking transition, there is an observable trend towards youth in kitchens (Lethlean, 2003; Parkinson & Green, 2002). The ‘old’ cook is conspicuous by their absence. This provides a tension: cooks stop cooking professionally many years before retirement age, but the culture and systems of kitchens may provide hurdles for this transition.
Cooking professionally is demanding in many ways. The nature of the work, the heat, split shifts and the number of hours worked are physically gruelling. Placement of hours, predominantly at night, limits a ‘normal’ life. The high work output and abuse can be mentally and spiritually draining. The comparatively low level of pay reduces personal options including access to formal education.
Cooks do not always plan their exit from kitchens and, ultimately, career cooking. The lack of career planning is evidenced in how cooks often leave kitchens mid-shift, discretely (an apron left crumpled on the floor without an owner to fill it), or conspicuously (with loud expletives and verbose posturing) (Sheehan, 2002). Just another cook walking out of another kitchen; these actions are normally unplanned, just knee-jerk reactions to one request too many (Fine, 1996). It is not an industry that follows up with an exit interviews.
I was interested in studying how other cooks fared post-cooking, particularly with re-engaging education. Although some authors, writing of the American system, believe that cooks should ideally plan their vocational and educational careers (Brefere, Drummond, & Barnes, 2006), Fine (1996, p. 49) observes how realistically “cooking lacks a career trajectory”. Therefore, cooks are more likely to react to, rather than plan for, steps in their progression both within and beyond hospitality. This may be implied through the seemingly unlikely transitions from sous chef to bricklayer’s labourer, from executive chef to fishmonger or, from pastry chef to university student. The anecdotal trend from professional cooking to unskilled labouring is surprisingly common: hands-on work, shorter hours, and better pay. The fishmonger shows a similar example, but with the addition of identifying a niche and using transferable craft-skills to financial benefit. Neither requires going back to school. The final example is an anomaly: a cook re-engaging with formal education and studying at university-level.