There have been more than a few students I’ve taught with a nutrition background, whether classical or holistic.  They don’t teach nutrition students how to cook when they’re in nutrition school, and likewise most cooking schools do a superficial job teaching their cooking students about nutrition.  Furthermore, the food industry, from fast food to fine dining, focuses mainly on food to look and taste good and not necessarily be good for your health.

So should food first and foremost to be good for our health, and should it please our senses?  Why can’t it, and generally doesn’t, do both?  The old saying “never trust a skinny chef” seems odd because the counter means you shouldn’t trust your health to a fat chef.   When I look at the cooking techniques schools teach their students, they are translatable into any cuisine or style of cooking, even any attitude towards nutrition.  All culinary instructors will transmit their own style and cultural/ingredient affinities.  Some love their butter, are generous with salt and pepper, are liberal with their olive oil, can’t do without bacon and bacon drippings, rely on spices, are turned on by the hot flame and very loyal to their grill, salamander, deep-fryer, or a screaming hot pan; whereas some are very light-handed with fat, salt, spices, heat, and tend to manipulate and transform ingredients as little as possible.  In other words, some cooks are more devoted to technical transformation and manipulation of flavours and visual appeal on the plate, whereas some cooks are more devoted to consciously let choice ingredients do more of its thing and putting forth food that tries to achieve balance.  The former type of cook cares more about what happens in your mouth and what appeals to your eyes before eating the food;  the latter cares more about an overall experience, including what happens in your body after having eaten the food.  Another way of putting this, the former style of cooking is more about the chef and his/her artistry; the latter is more about the food and its bigger picture.  This begs the question “what is the role of the chef?”  Many are taking on the role as an educator for a public desperate for guidance, as the voice about our food system, influencing issues such as sustainability, supporting local farmers, seasonality, transparency.  Well done.   And it’s working.  As a whole we are flocking the farmer’s market for better and healthier ingredients.  So shouldn’t professional chefs be devoting more of their work to cooking healthier dishes with these better-for-you ingredients?  Perhaps this is the next “trend”.

This is why our attitude at our school towards nutrition is continually evolving.  Also, our students demand this.  By simply flashing the latest government nutrition guide to our students is not good enough – in fact, the guide itself needs a lot of work.  We will still teach our students the fundamentals, the classics such as a hollandaise/bearnaise sauce or a beurre blanc; but we will bring to their attention little details like finishing a risotto with cream and butter is a cop-out technique, adding unnecessary fat and calories to justify creaminess that should be achieved by reaching for a wooden spoon and not the fridge.  Our excitement and focus on grains and vegetarian cooking is as devoted to that of charcuterie.  In fact, we now purposely teach grain and vegetarian week AFTER charcuterie week so the students will appreciate well-balanced dishes that much more after a week of pork belly, confit, rillette, galantines, terrines, sausages, bacon, and duck fat.

When someone asks me “who are the talented budding stars in the class?” I’m really baffled.  It is a question too often asked, and it puts me in an uncomfortable, if not irritating situation.  It’s not that faces do not come to mind, but the question itself simply does not conjure in my mind a rational process by which I can make an objective decision.  Also, I’ve noticed that many schools and media use the words “star” and “talented” to draw our attention to the profession.

Let’s start with the “star” business.  The word too often means someone who successfully draws attention to their person, not necessarily their work.  A budding star can be someone who will legitimately one day deserve very close attention, but it can and often does mean someone who will know how to play the media, integrate with the flavour-of-the-month club, mimic the trends of the day to a tee, and smile perfectly for a camera.  The cooking world has mimicked Hollywood and sports so well it practically goes out of its way to shows itself as such on tv.

Now the word “talent” is a bit more dangerous in my estimation for it supposedly has this all or none aspect to it. Again, I’m not sure what aspects of my brain I’m supposed to draw from to make any conclusions about someone’s talent when it comes to cooking.  What am I supposed to be looking for?  Their artistic flair?  Please!  Athletes are scouted, rated and drafted according to their “raw talent”, their “raw skills”, such as how fast they can run, throw a ball, skate, shoot, or kick.  But even now, and more than ever, athletes are being assessed by how hard they work, their attitude, their desire to evolve to the next levels of success.

As a teacher I evaluate skills, and every skill in cooking requires development – mental, physical, and sensorial.  Some students develop quicker than others, often naturally so being more versed mentally, physically and experientially with the fundamentals of cooking; culinary development will always require putting in the necessary time.  Some will simply have to put in more time to catch up to the consistency and efficiency of others.  But one thing I know and know for sure from years of teaching is that the students who work the hardest during and after school, irrespective of their “talents” when they started the course, are the ones that are noticed for the long run in the industry, for they are the ones that persist, evolve, and do the necessary work to put excellent food on the plate.  It is their food, their personal evolution to become the best they can be, you notice.

Everyone can learn to cook.  Some get to a certain level with a lesser path of resistance, just as some athletes do.  But the best students I have ever taught are not those I noticed with having what is called “natural talent” or  “it”, but those simply with the most desire (unless that’s the “it” we’re referring to).  The quality of a cook depends more directly on the quantity of work put in.  That’s the “stuff” damn good cooks are made of.

I’m all about mind-set.  With food, cooking especially, the right mind-set is crucial simply because the wrong mind-set is discouraging, even detrimental to one’s health.  The mind-set we strive to inculcate in our professional students on day one is that of a craftsman, someone completely dedicated and devoted to continuously better his/her skills.  For the home cook, a similar type of mind-set is essential, especially since the average home cook struggles with the discipline of devoting the time to put one’s head down and just cook and try things even if they fail, and try again, take note, and make adjustments to get better.  The quick and easy is the cop-out mind-set.

So how does the average person commit to their kitchen, their knife, pots and pans, range, sink, cutting board, and tools?  There’s an instant rice commercial with this semi-dressed (or semi-nude) girl racing down the stairs to her microwaved rice dish and just as  quickly she scrambles back up the stairs.  What’s interesting about this add is the set:  the kitchen is absolutely beautiful with an island that can host at least a half dozen cooks.  Obviously the message is about time and convenience; the kitchen is a fashion accessory, almost superfluous.  The mind-set propagated here is one that convinces you that time is never on your side when it comes to food, your kitchen a place of toil and off-producing smells.  The ideal mind-set is one where you want to devote time when it comes to food, like one wants to devote time to a hobby, a craft, a passion, a métier, even an indulgence like on-line poker, tweeting, reading a book, yoga, or a sport.  The ideal mind-set treats the kitchen as a studio, a place of chemistry, physics, sculpting, art, experimenting, playing, and doing serious yet fruitful work.  Your kitchen as your studio is your place of ideas, thinking, developing skills and senses, developing instinct and confidence, deciphering food lore and culture, and creating your own repertoire, essentially writing your own cookbook.  Gadgets are now tools, plates are now canvasses, and the dining room is now a gallery – no, more like a classroom, a round table of post-production discussion, of learning.

Food is important.  It deserves a serious workplace.  It’s not the granite countertop, Wolf gas range, or Sub-Zero fridge that makes a kitchen a kitchen:  it’s the cook and cooking.