is readily arranged. Frequently financial concerns motivate the switch although those who remain in the kitchen must find the work somewhat appealing.
Chance Connections. It is rare for adolescents to make definite choices early; often they fall into their work by chance and through unplanned opportunity. Book publishing is a good example of such an “accidental profession” (Coser, Kadushin, and Powell 1982, pp. 99-101). Few publishing careers are planned; so it is with kitchen work. Editors and cooks who see their work as relatively permanent are “hooked” by the work and have set aside plans to leave.
Some cooks who enter the occupation through trade school made their program selection by happenstance without careful consideration:
| GAF: | Why did you decide on the cooking program [at trade school]? |
| DENVER: | I didn't cook that much at home, but when I did I enjoyed it. When we were down there, they were really working' doing wedding cakes, and I was really impressed by that. It was just kind of a whim. I thought that would be fun, and so I just went into it.(Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel) |
When I figured out I was wasting my time [in college], I went to vocational school and took the test to see what field I should be in, hoping that they'd tell me, and they said I could do anything I wanted to with the aptitudes that I had. The first three choices that I picked they vetoed. One because I didn't like to read, one because I didn't have any art classes, and one because I couldn't spell. We had an interview session, and I told them I had some interest in cooking but thought I was only [interested in cooking] because my best friend had gone through the program a year prior. They told me to try it, and I liked it.
(Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel)
Some cooks find themselves in the right place at the right time, even though they lack culinary background: “It was an accident. It was completely by accident. I didn't choose it. I was working for Macalester College at the time, and I was a custodian, and I was going to train and get my boiler's license, and I was working on a Saturday morning, and a couple of cooks didn't show up, and since I got along well with the manager of the kitchen, and they asked me if I could fry up some french fries and some other things, and I said, T don't know nothing about that.' He said, That's OK. We just need the help.' That's how it started” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). This cook entered the occupation because he was a warm body. When the pay, conditions, and satisfactions proved adequate, he continued and made the work his career.
Cooking lacks a routine career trajectory; the career depends on unpredictable contingencies. To have contacts, to move up from low-status jobs, or to be where one is needed opens the door. Whether one will enter and stay is a personal choice, hard to predict in advance. Work choices depend on the satisfactions that emerge from one's personal experiences and one's incorporation into the community. In a long-term career a series of contingencies and opportunities affects one's ultimate position in the occupation and one's decision to leave, resign, or retire. Some depend on conscious choices and hiring decisions—how jobs are supposed to be allocated—while others occur by chance.
SOCIALIZATION TO THE KITCHEN
A key indicator that a novice has become a competent cook is the development of a professional stance: a set of public behaviors and attitudes that validates that one shares the abilities and values of one's fellows. The techniques by which one presents oneself as a professional reveals the presence of socialization. Professionalism is a strategy for the display of self, and socialization involves proper display (Manning and Hearn 1969), even if that display blinds one to the economic-instrumental aspects of the occupation (Dickinson and Erben 1984). One cook explained: “There are only four things that are important in this industry to be professional, and that's determination, drive, and common sense, and attitudes and heart. Your heart's your work” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). These concepts are symbolic representations of what must be revealed in practice. When individuals do not demonstrate these components of community and competence, they must be separated from their position, preferably by being “cooled out.” Just as careers are constructed, so are terminations (Faulkner 1974). For example, the cook fired during my observation was defined as lacking “professionalism.” She explained: “The way that Tim explained it, he thought that my work was good, and I was really meticulous. [Food was] very pretty when I got done with it, but that I never did pick up the speed…. They really didn't give me any feeling that this was coming, but I understood it, and I know that that's his way too. I had never been in this kind of position in that kind of restaurant, and I was afraid of disturbing him by asking too many questions…. Tim told me he thought I was really cut out to be a hobby cook, not a professional” (Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre). Even though this young cook had talent, she was unable to convince others (or herself) that she was a professional, and so she had to be terminated. She had not learned subcultural techniques through the three standard methods: watching, formal education, or being trained on the job.
Learning by Watching. Entering a kitchen, one encounters a booming, buzzing confusion. Everything happens simultaneously; nothing makes sense. If one has attended a cooking school or has a mentor, entrance is easier, but even with these advantages one must imitate others' actions. One is expected to acquire rapidly the unstated rules in the kitchen. It becomes painfully obvious when these rules are broken (Schroedl 1972, p. 184). One watches and learns to cook “by feel.” The novice observes, errs, and learns from those mistakes so as to avoid them: “Practice makes perfect.” A dishwasher, eventually promoted to cook, explained: “As a dishwasher, you sit and watch what the cooks do, and what the shrimp should look like, what color it is, and when it's done and stuff like that. When you're cooking, you try it out, and you get to know it” (Personal interview, Stan's; see Herman 1978, p. 33). This technique, prominent at low-status restaurants, is also evident in higher-status establishments, where the ability to watch trained professionals offsets modest salaries (Waldemar 1985). A cook at the Owl's Nest explained: “I've only been there for a couple of months, [but] I'm really learning.…I would like to come in on a slow night with just [the chef] and I, and let me work the sauté station, and he can work the broiler” (Personal interview, Owl's Nest). The circulation of cooks and chefs spreads techniques throughout the industry. Cooks learn informally from each another and share their techniques with new colleagues:
Tomorrow we do a salad which we haven't served here since I've been here, which I stole from the other hotel…. That's why chefs move around so much. I mean, I can sit here for two years and get everything I know. While I'm here, I can pick up a couple of new things—just from other people who have worked here. I'll leave here just because I'm drained out, and I've got nothing new to offer. I'll then go to another establishment and give them what I already learned, plus what I've just learned here, and things that they have never seen before, and they're happy, and I'm happy because I get to show off what I know. I learned a few things that they were doing differently. Take all that to the next place. In the meantime, you're just expanding and growing.
(Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel)
The informal side of socialization is crucial in any occupation but seems particularly salient in locales, such as kitchens, in which formal models of education are weak, and where some assume that the job can be mastered by anyone with sufficient motivation. If socialization is assumed routine and painless, little provision is made for acquiring knowledge, even though the cost for not learning properly is high. Cooks have, in the words of Wilbert Moore, “a fellowship of suffering,” in which all are attempting to master difficult and unpleasant tasks through role modeling, coaching, and peer support (Bucher and Stelling 1977, p. 268).
Formal Training. Increasingly, cooks learn their craft in institutes such as trade schools (Fine 1985)—some state run, and others private or proprietary, such as the famed Culinary Institute of America. Of the thirty cooks interviewed, eighteen (60 percent) were trained in public trade schools; none of my sample were trained in private schools. Programs in Minnesota required students to attend classes daily for either eleven or twenty-two months. Students learned basic
