wacs – Young Chefs
“ To be or not to be” A CHEF? A young chef, Mojmir Šiftar, confesses his former dilemma.
by Mojmir Šiftar – young chef ambassador, Slovenia
for life. They always complain how much they have to study or when they are working how many papers they have to “put from one bunch to another”. The other problem that can occur when a young person is studying for a chef is losing interest. I have seen a lot of colleges that came to the culinary and hospitality school full with ambition of becoming a great chef but that ambition in our country disappears quickly, mostly after a couple of years. I don’t like pointing fingers but there are currently a lot of factors that can affect the choice of becoming a chef. It actually doesn’t matter if the problem is that the school system teaches you more about mathematics, geography or astro
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I have seen a lot of colleges that came to the culinary and hospitality school full with ambition of becoming a great chef but that ambition in our country disappears quickly, mostly after a couple of years.
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“To be or not to be is the question now” is what Shakespeare wrote in his play and that is also a question that many of young people ask themselves when wondering what they want to be when they grow up. I had the same dilemma at the age of 13 when I was deciding between a profession that involves knives, fire, long shifts and hard work and a profession where you sit behind a desk 8 hours a day five days a week. At the age of 21 I don’t regret my choice of becoming a chef for a single second. However, when I take a look around my peers I see not everybody made the same choice. When I talk to students that study economics or something alike they seem to me unhappy as if they lost the will 28 World Association of Chefs Societies
physics than cooking and how to be successful in your calling. Or if the problem is when you start you internship at a hotel or restaurant where you are thrown in a working process where you have to wash dishes or peel potatoes for a half of year and nobody is willing to teach you anything regarding actual cooking. Many of young students change their mind about being a chef because they don’t want to live that kind of tough life. At least that is what they think because they quit before they have a chance to discover the “BEAUTY” of creating new dishes and making people happy behind the “BEAST” of working long and hard hours. I am not saying that apprentices shouldn’t wash the dishes and peel potatoes because that is the basic and all of the great chefs started their journey behind the sink full of big and dirty dishes. But if you can do the dishes and the potatoes correct and acquire positive thinking, you have all the possibilities to move on and stand behind the pot for 16 hours a day without losing any energy. I try to be a good example for my younger colleagues and show each and every one of them the BEAUTY and the pleasure of our profession. So to tell the long story short the answer on the question “To be or not to be” is most definitely TO BE.