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Can veg*ns be professional cooks?

1K views 26 replies 18 participants last post by  The Fall 
#1 ·
So everyone i know keeps telling me i should go to culinary school, be a chef, blah blah blah. I do love to cook, and hey maybe i'd love to do it as a living, but i tell them time and time again, there's no vegetarian culinary school, i will have to deal with meat, most likely including meat i wouldn't have even ever used or eaten as an omni like rabbit or deer.

Is there any way veg*ns can be pro cooks? I mean of course there's ways around it, not all pros go to culinary school, but i know i would need to if i wanted to be given a shot, but can't. I feel pretty sad, this is the only thing i've ever been complimented on and the only thing i really like and that people think i can do, in a way i wish i was still ignorant and omni, for selfish reasons of course, but obviously i'm not going to go back to meat even for this.
 
#2 ·
You might want to have a look at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York. They do use chicken, fish and eggs but might be prepared to offer adaptations to a vegan course. I know they offer vegan evening classes for the general public. It's something I might be looking into, but I haven't inquired about it yet. Good luck.
 
#4 ·
I had a friend who was a vegetarian until she went to culinary school. It's possible that this was just this particular school's policy, but the instructors required students to taste everything they prepared - and they had to learn to prepare chicken, fish, pork, etc. My friend decided to eat meat so she wouldn't have to leave the program for which she'd already paid. I suppose she could have gone back to being vegetarian after passing the course, but sadly she didn't.

I wonder if veg*an cooking schools exist. It doesn't seem like a far-fetched idea. While I feel like it makes sense for a school to require an aspiring chef to taste their food, I still wouldn't do it and I feel like I can't be alone in that. Even if you can't become a professional that way, you could still take lots of veg*an cooking classes.
 
#10 ·
I think that while there are vegan cooking schools one should also look into employment opportunities after. Like how many vegan restaurants are nearby, and even if there are a few i would assume the competition to work there is pretty high because vegans usually like to cook so there may be a few who want to be professional chefs
 
#11 ·
I think a big problem will be that they are so small and not enough that they'll all be pretty expensive private schools and most likely far away from where i am. Oh and no i don't think i'd ever want my own restaurant i'm not a business person or anything.
 
#14 ·
Most vegan chefs probably do private catering. Or run a baking mailorder outfit.

I was an assistant for a vegetarian caterer for 6 months or so. She had 'big money' clients. The account I helped her with was an American Express corporate exec. They employed 2 nannies for their kid! A different world ...
 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AeryFairy View Post

What about chefs with allergies? Or religious convictions?
They make a choice. I worked in veggie places and I had to work with milk/eggs. I'd refuse to taste anything with milk/eggs in (this was stuff on the standard menu set by the owner - specials were always vegan cos I designed the daily menus) and get another member of staff to taste them.

At the same place I worked with a devout Muslim who refused to work in omni places cos he didn't want to handle pork (and possibly other meat that was not halal, I've forgotten).

Really a chef should be desinging menus, not being told what to do. That said, you've got to work up to that level and just suck it up so moral/religious convictions aren;t likely to come in to play. Also, most chefs seem to be complete and utter arseholes.
 
#17 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlixJ18 View Post

After looking into what it takes money and time wise, in school and after, there's no way i want to do it as a profession lol.
My sister wanted to do it, but ended up going back to her medical coding job because of the money. It costs a lot and in reality, you usually don't make that much. My cousin went to culinary school in NY and is now a manager at a fancy restaurant on the beach. I'm sure he's making bank now.
 
#18 ·
If I were still a meat eater, I wouldnt trust a veggie chef to cook my meal for me.

Not too sure a regular chef wouldnt put some ingredient it that was not veggie (due to lack of knowledge) either.

I want a dedicated Veggie chef if Im paying the dollars for a good meal.
 
#19 ·
The Natural Gourmet Institute is an option. I took a month's worth of courses there. They did more of a "flexitarian" thing, however, at least in my courses, fish may have been an option to cook and eat, but nobody was ever forced to, and those not wanting to use it, cooked something else instead. They also seem to have a decent list of potential employers, many as a private chef for someone etc. I wouldn't be as concerned with where to get a culinary training, but rather as where you would find employment, as many establishments will require you to work with a variety of foods. Even most vegetarian/vegan places around here serve chicken or fish. Thats basically why I didn't go the culinary route even though I thought about it for a while. Pay is usually bad, hours are long and inconvenient, and entirely vegan jobs would be fairly hard to come by. But if you're good enough to be the next big vegan chef (I'm sure not) then by all means follow your dreams.
 
#20 ·
I don't want to work as a chef, but I've wanted to take cooking classes. I feel like I'm in a cooking rut, and I've never had any sort of training... Just, read the recipe and trial and error... lots of error.
 
#21 ·
I'm a professional cook. And yeah, I'm not going to lie, (sorry moderators) I cook a lot of meat. I have to. As much I want to run a vegetarian kitchen it's just not in the cards. The most I can do is make everything as healthy as possible and slowly push more vegetarian items on to the menu. You will run into this same problem undoubtedly. I even used to work at a vegan brewery. Even though they had an almost completely vegan menu, they still had a few meat items on there simply to expand their customer basis. If you aren't serving what customers what they won't come.

Your main problems are. Even if you find a badass vegan culinary school, you will stay have to WORK in a good amount of restaurants to gain the real experience and unless you live in the San Francisco Bay area, you probably wont find a ton of full on vegan restaurants. And if you work in an omni restaurant you will be expected to handle meat. If you refuse, you'll land yourself in the pantry station and never leave.

My best advise to you if you are serious about becoming a vegan chef (because I am), is to find your choice of courses, get a job in a normal omni restaurant and start learn as much as you can and getting all the experience you can. Anyone on the site can say anything they want about how cooking meat is violating the oath of a veg*n but they don't all work in the restaurant business or understand that it is sometimes necessary in order to pay the bills. It's all about pushing for a better tomorrow. It will always suck at first but just keep pushing toward your goal (vegan chef) and you will get there eventually someday. I've known plenty of veg*ns working in kitchens with and around every type of meat imaginable. More and more people switch over everyday and the health fad is growing exponentially. There will definitely be a place for bigger and badder veggie restaurants in the near future. For now, you just need to worry about getting through the first 5 to 7 years of industrial kitchens, those are the hard years.
 
#22 ·
I respect your approach very much. You are a subversive undercover operative in enemy territory. Stay safe!


It is about supply and demand. I remember all too well when being a vegetarian branded you as a weirdo with nearly everyone. Now many eateries have veg options and most people have a grudging respect or even acceptance.

Most of the Food Channel shows now feature veg food from time to time. They tried a veg host once, a nice fellow named Curtis who, sadly, later did an omni show, but the demand obviously was not there.

Overall it's moving in the right direction, though.
 
#23 ·
I would like to also mention that working on a line, and loving to cook are totally different things. I worked as a professional cook, without formal training, for a few years. The first job was for a cafe that I set the menu and cooked all the food. The next job was on the line for a large hotel. I absolutely love cooking, but hated doing as a profession. When I got the job in the cafe, I had just gone vegetarian, and cooking meat was no big deal, as I still cooked it at home for my boyfriend. As I set the menu, I was able to do plenty of vegetarian options, and even tried my hand at vegan cooking for the first time.t was a satisfying job because when I took over, people loved my food, and we started to turn a profit for the first time. It was too late, though, because we went bankrupt. By the time I was at the hotel, I was vegan, but had no choice but to take the job. It was disgusting, and it became physically upsetting. I hated it, and cried every single day when I would return home.

Professional kitchens are nasty, mean, greasy, yucky places, even when they're clean. Often the environment is incredibly sexist, as well. It's a tough job that requires a very thick skin, long hours, hard work, and constant passion to do well.


That said, I also did some catering when I was a teenager, and I loved that. Totally different. Just my two cents! Good luck, OP.
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by reneeannem View Post

Professional kitchens are nasty, mean, greasy, yucky places, even when they're clean. Often the environment is incredibly sexist, as well. It's a tough job that requires a very thick skin, long hours, hard work, and constant passion to do well.
Well said. Not to mention EVERYONE is abusing one substance or another. I've seen it all, literally. I'm still rocking but there were certainly hard years and I'm sure there are more to come, I just don't see myself doing anything else. I started as a young teenager with a pocket full of dreams. Then reality come in. You're in a hot small steel box filled with knives, stress, grease, fire, attitudes and chaos. The tickets are printing over and over making a huge pile of paper on the floor. The expediter is screaming out orders non stop, "WALKIN' IN! 4 orders sweet fries, 2 portabella steaks extra blue cheese, 7 lasater burgers 2 medium, 2 midrare, 1 well done, 1 medium no seasoning, 1 midwell, 3 crab cakes, 1 cheese plate on the fly, 3 mizuna salads, 8 latke cakes 2 no brie 3 extra corn salsa, 5 warm guagamole 2 cold, 7 peel and eat shrimp-DROP AN ORDER OF POMME FRITES ON THE FLY- 6 chimi beef, 6 chimi shrimp, 8 tempura veggies, 7 calamari steaks-HOW MANY ORDERS OF VEG YOU GOT DOWN- 4 hummus platters! WALKIN IN! 3 orders sweet fries! That's 7 all day!..." and on and on and on for 7 hours. That's just the line too, that doesn't include prep time and cleaning time. And your rushing to make your 7 minute ticket times. In the mean time your friends are cutting their fingers in half, your throwing bleach on bloody work surfaces, flipping the crab cakes, water gets in the fryer and it explodes, you make a cheese plate on the fly for the folks who's fried food will take a little longer, flip the crab cakes, the whole while calling back everything the expediter yells at you, yelling for constant updates on food items your waiting for down the line, dish washers running in like kamikaze pilots trying to remove pans and wash them and get them back to the line in record time. You yell at you salad cook to keep his bloody hand above his head, the dishwasher doesn't use a towel to grab a stack of pans and burns all the flesh off his hand, then he splits to the emergency room, you grab all your dirty 400 degree pans and toss them in a sink, the mairtre d' grabs the buss boy to do dishes. Flip all the fish, lay the cheese on the latkes and throw them in the oven, still yelling everything back at the expo, he runs out of dark island dressing, you kick the fry cook off to go make more, then you are dropping the fry items and running saute, the grill cook is just laughing at you, blaring Stephen Marley so loud you can barely hear your self think, yelling back at the expo for all day counts, plating food, making it look pretty and putting it in the window then flipping back around and continuing to rock. And, yes, the salad cook, stops bleeding, puts on a glove and returns to his post. Welcome to the world of modern kitchens!

When we stab the last ticket everyone heads outside to crack down cigarettes, burn the green off bowls of shwag, and take shots of tequila, then return to work, trying to let their minds relax.
 
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