Food Education and the Minority Chef

Everyone should learn to cook. I say this not because I am a chef, but because every life spent on this rock has the need to eat often and most of us will have a part of their lives in which they may not live with others.

Lots of food educations began in the kitchen with a parental unit. Stir the pot, roll the dough, bang the pots and pans, it all starts in a home kitchen. Many of us get to advance as we age, and some go on to cook for others. Culinary colleges have, in recent years, sprung up all over the place. Back in the Stone Age, when I went to culinary school, there were just a few American schools in which you could gain formal training in the arts. In fact, my alma matter, Lexington College, shuttered its doors.

Washburn Culinary College was a long standing institutional trade school of differing skills in the Chicago area. It has a rich history and the culinary college training program grew to be the best of its program offerings. In order to uphold that excellence, the culinary program is now apart of the City Colleges network residing in the Kennedy King College in Englewood neighborhood. It's original location was on the West side of Chicago and during the years after 1940, the West side changed its racial identity when Chicago's African American population began to take up residence in the area. Therefore, the student entering the trade school began to shift with the neighborhood residents.
http://forgottenchicago.com/articles/the-last-days-of-washburne/

During the years before the racial unrest of the civil rights movement, white flight, a trend of white people selling their homes once black faces became their neighbors, further changed the racial complexion of the area, and greater numbers of blacks began training at Washburn. Some of Chicago's best trained chefs were graduates of the Wasburn Culinary program. Since then a great number of colleges either added a culinary program or opened doors as only a culinary program.

It has been my experience that there is no shortage of minority representation in professional kitchens around Chicago, but the question is, how many of the top chefs, executive chefs, are from a minority background? We have always been in the fight for excellent food offerings in this city, and in many cities around the globe, Blacks and Hispanic workers are often more numerous than the non-minority workers. Hard working people with excellent food skills and dedication to the art are not limited to one group exclusively. But does the leadership of these fine outlets reflect the racial identity of the whole body of workers in the industry?

Add to this discussion, the lack of professional organizations such as fraternities, networking groups, and social societies for chefs, let alone minority culinarians. I am not saying that there aren't any but their aren't many, that's for sure. But why? Why is the default image of a chef the cartoon pizza chef with the chubby cheeks? I recently did a search online for clip art and logos of chefs, and very few were female and even fewer were minority females. I had to create my own version for my logo as none that I had found were in no way suitable.Why is it not uncommon to have a white male executive chef in charge of large numbers of chefs who do not look like them? Is the only female chef images limited to the Aunt Jemima pancake icon?

The recent boom in culinary schools opening, and now beginning to close, infused a large number of new graduates hungry for a position in a professional kitchen, and as those numbers of trained personnel grew, one must ask the question, where did all the black chefs go? Did the number of minority students increase with the advent of all the new outlets available to gain training? I am sure it did, even if just slightly. http://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/black-chefs/

I live in one of the most segregated cities in the world, Chicago. We still have homogeneous neighborhoods all over this city. However, this city does have a wide wide range of differing ethic groups from around the globe. So, I ask, where is the great executive level chefs who's parents hail from India, Micronesia, South America, Mexico, and who are descended from our American Native groups or from the descendants of African slaves?

During the colonial years of this nation, a very large percentage of the meals cooked for the slave owners, and the Yankees too, were made by dark hands in servant quarters all over this nation. The traditional servitude positions were most often filled by dark or mixed members of society and this was one of the most readily available work for minorities after slavery, during the reconstruction, all throughout the civil rights movement, and many of us remain in these type of service oriented positions. I am not ashamed of what I do, but a large number of the upwardly mobile young professionals are quick to be dismissive once they ask you the $1,000,000 question "and what do you do for a living".

Here's the thing that most misunderstand about the civil rights movement and the feminist movement, in my opinion, the original goal of both of these movements was to expand the opportunities for women and minorities. The version of this in practice, done by a majority of people today, look down upon our profession as if we are just hired help with little dignity or professionalism. This is no different than a ERA movement member shaming her adult daughter's choice to have kids and a traditional marriage instead of becoming a CEO of a fortune 500 company. When attempting to gain equality, balance, just social order, stop thinking of us as less than for choosing a different path than yours. We chefs are highly skilled, and keep on gaining knowledge to keep up to the ever changing demands of our customers, diverse group of exacting professionals willing and able to make your events special and memorable.