The Home Cook Gourmet
•November 9, 2009
...from what's cookin' with doc
The home cook has, I believe, the hardest job of all and often receives the least amount of respect for performing the tasks at hand. In fact, many home cooks perform at a level more worthy of the title home gourmet.
Let’s look a little more closely to those who strive in the unpaid daily kitchen grind. What must the home gourmet do compared to the restaurant professional chef?
- While both have to work within budgets, the home gourmet cannot simply pass along any increased costs in the form of increased prices to his or her customers; he or she and family are the customers.
- Going out to restaurant is often somewhat celebratory in nature. The vast majority of customers do not dine at the same restaurant every night. Unlike the home gourmet, the diners are not relying on the restaurant chef to provide for their long term nutritional and health needs.
- The folks at home want the food to be as tasty as when they dine out.
- Although this is changing as equipment and supplies become more accessible, the home gourmet often does not have access to the resources of a professional kitchen.
- The home gourmet may be under a different, but equally demanding, set of time constraints compared to the restaurant chef-and they often have no helpers.
- The skill set of the home gourmet is often self-taught.
So in summary, you have an environment in which meals and dining must be prepared to have the taste appeal of a good restaurant meal with an eye toward the repercussions on the diner’s nutrition and health. While professional restaurant chef’s can offer some “healthy options” on their menu, the home chef is often limited to a relatively fixed daily menu in terms of the number of offerings. In some ways, this seems an even more daunting, albeit different challenge, from a culinary perspective than the daily challenge facing a professional restaurant chef.
Latest Comments