Great Chefs (and what they mean to me)

Over the course of this past year. 10 months really. I have spent as much time as humanly possible reading. I have tried to absorb as much as humanly possible and have many notebooks and this blog as evidence of that fact.

I have read Escoffier, Girardet, the Roux Brothers, Bourdain, Marco Pierre White, Alice Waters, Thomas Keller, Michael Ruhlman and so many more. I have read MFK Fisher with delight and marveled at the ingenuity required to consider how to properly cook a wolf. But what has all this reading meant for my development?

Each time I pick up a book I read it with a sense of urgency equal to that of a student who knows that his teacher is about to die. With that urgency I have riffled through the various, wits, wisdoms and insights of the greats to both aid my journey and to illuminate my path. From each I have taken something significant and different.

But ultimately the question comes down to this; what makes a great chef great? I think that everyone in his or her chosen field asks this question. What makes a pitcher so capable of throwing? An artist so capable of capturing a moment in time? A writer, so on and so forth.

So I ask then; what does make a great chef great? I have asked this question before in the blog. How does Gordon Ramsay become Gordon Ramsay? Or Marco Pierre White? I think that in this age of instant gratification everyone buys into the belief that these people can achieve success, well, instantly. As such there is a over stylized and glamourized concept that people have with regard to them. But not me.

I have worked in the restaurant industry now for over ten months. Ten long, grueling, demanding and glorious months. I have learned more being in the restaurant than any book (or culinary school) could ever impart. And yet I am left with the question; what separates the wheat from the chaff? And ultimately I think what makes people in any given field great is; Drive, Passion, Talent, Desire and Dedication.

What makes Gordon Ramsay Gordon Ramsay is that he has worked tirelessly, everyday to BE Gordon Ramsay. The same is true of all the greats. I hope one day to be looked at not by the world at large, but by my customers, as a great chef. As a harbinger of culinary greatness that culminates in a wonderful experience, gastronomical and otherwise, that they can take with them for the rest of their lives.

The more I read, the more I come to understand, that the field that I have chosen is one that eats people alive. I come to see that I did not choose the field at all but rather that it chose me. And while today I am but an infant in the industry learning how to crawl and soon to walk, I am aware that you can’t really pick to be a great chef, YOU HAVE TO BECOME ONE. On a path that is clear but winding. That path is what has made all these Chefs great.

George Bernard Shaw once wrote; “Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness but it is greatness.” Think about that for a minute.

Are you dreaming big and inspired? WHY NOT?

A la prochaine

SDM