Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Chef and stuff..


 A chef is a person who cooks professionally. In a professional kitchen setting, the term is used only for the one person in charge of everyone else in the kitchen — the "executive chef."

The word "chef" (from Latin caput) is the abbreviated form of the French phrase chef de cuisine, the "chief" or "head" of a kitchen. The title chef in the culinary profession originates from the roots of haute cuisine in the 19th century. The English-language use of the word chef has become a term that is sometimes used to mean any professional cook, regardless of rank.
  
Chef de cuisine, executive chef and head chef

This person is in charge of all things related to the kitchen which usually includes menu creation; management, scheduling and payroll of entire kitchen staff; ordering; and plating design. Chef de cuisine is the traditional French term from which the English word chef comes, and is more common in European kitchens. Executive chef is more common in England and the United States. Head chef is often used to designate someone with the same duties as an executive chef, but there is usually someone in charge of them, possibly making the larger executive decisions such as direction of menu, final authority in staff management decisions, etc. This is often the case for chefs with several restaurants.

Sous-chef

The sous-chef de cuisine (under-chef of the kitchen) is the direct assistant of the executive chef, and is second in command. This person may be responsible for scheduling and substituting when the executive chef is off-duty. The sous-chef will also fill in for or assist the chef de partie (line cook) when needed. Smaller operations may not have a sous-chef, while larger operations may have multiple.

Expediter

The expediter (in French aboyeur) takes the orders from the dining room and relays them to the stations in the kitchen. This person also often puts the finishing touches on the dish before it goes to the dining room. In some operations this task may be done by either the executive chef or the sous-chef.

Chef de partie

A chef de partie, also known as a "station chef" or "line cook", is in charge of a particular area of production. In large kitchens, each station chef might have several cooks and/or assistants. In most kitchens however, the station chef is the only worker in that department. Line cooks are often divided into a hierarchy of their own, starting with "first cook", then "second cook", and so on as needed.
  
Kitchen assistants

Kitchen assistants (often known as kitchen porters or kitchenhands) are usually kitchen workers who assist with basic tasks, but have had no formal training in cooking. Tasks could include peeling potatoes or washing salad, for example. Smaller kitchens more commonly have kitchen assistants who would be assigned a wide variety of tasks (including washing up) in order to control costs.
A communard is in charge of preparing the meal for the staff during a shift. This meal is often referred to as the staff or family meal.
The escuelerie (from 15th century French) or dishwasher, is the keeper of dishes, having charge of dishes and keeping the kitchen clean. A common humorous title for this role in some modern kitchens is chef de plúnge.

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