A SCHOOL FOR COOKS

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 69, 23 March 1931, Page 6

A SCHOOL FOR COOKS

The London County Council has its finger in so many pies that it is a wonder it manages to function at all. I was surprised to find recently that, in addition to its many other activities in the domain of education it keeps a restaurant for the special purpose of training chefs and waiters. It is open to the public, and for the sum of eighteenpence or two shillings one may obtain a very tidy little meal, running to five or six courses, and bearing little evidence of the experimental nature of its preparation. The "pupils" consist mostly of young boys who have just left school, and who intend to become professional waiters and chefs. There are about eighty of them, under the supervision of a "professor." The course takes several years to complete; and in the case of a chef it costs him (or his parents) about two hundred pounds. In addition to his professional training, the pupil is taught certain academic subjects—English and French, for example—in order, it is to be presumed, to enable him to write out his menu cards with correct spelling, and the French accents in the right places. All this is very important, for in England, it must be remembered, eating is one of the liberal arts.

The principle of the thing is that of "try it on the dog." If you are willing to risk having the soup spilled down your neck, or the beetroot sent sliding into your lap, you may visit this restaurant and obtain a meal which would cost you four or five shillings anywhere else. Accidents seldom happen, however. The professor sees to that. Here, too, by engaging one of the boys in conversation, one may discover some of the secrets of successful waiting. It is a subtle and intricate business, and at times there is just a touch of low cunning about it. You must not. for instance, keep a customer waiting between the soup and the fish. He is inclined to become peevish. Later in the meal, when his appetite has been chastened a little, it is safe to create a slight delay between courses, and give him the pleasure of anticipation. In this restaurant the customers —or those who attend regularly—are divided into two classes, the Easy and the Difficult. The beginner is given easy customers to deal with—people with good solid appetites who eat their food without quibbling about whether the soup is of exactly the right temperature, or the steak done to a turn. Later on, to test their skill, they are given the difficult customers, who are in the habit of picking the meal to bits, in the critical, not the gastronomic, sense. When the pupil has mastered the art of pampering gouty old men. and ladies with bad livers, he is considered thoroughly efficient to deal with ordinary restaurant customers; and, having completed his course, sets about getting a job.

Some of the boys from this school have been very lucky. There was one (his photograph is on the wall, holding half a dozen plates on each arm) who secured a position in a big London cafe. An American millionaire who happened to bj dining there took a fancy to him. and led him away to his mansion over the Atlantic, where the lad now earns a fabulous sum of money every week. He is held up to all later pupils as an example of what can be done with ability, a little luck, and a millionaire. —A.R.D.F.