Employment Options. Throughout the 1980s, the restaurant and hospitality industry expanded rapidly. Americans increasingly ate outside the home, particularly as the upper-middle-class had more disposable income and more women were in the paid workforce. Since entry-level positions didn't require extensive training and positions were opening rapidly, opportunities to work where they wished arose for cooks. One cook explained that “you can always change [jobs]. It's so easy to find another job if you're good; if you have the skills” (Field notes, Owl's Nest). Several mentioned that kitchen work satisfied their desire to travel. They could relocate and search for a comparable position with the confidence that one would be readily available. One cook remarked that job security was no problem, even though restaurants frequently closed: “In my job hunting I wasn't that worried about finding one. I knew I would eventually, and now that I'm here in Minneapolis, and I do have a job, I think that even if La Pomme closed, I would be absorbed into another place real fast. Once you get attached to an area, established, I think it's pretty secure. One of the few jobs left that there's a need for, you always have to eat” (Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre). Job mobility permitted cooks to decide where they wanted to be. By changing restaurants, they could climb the industry status ladder.
Self-Satisfaction. Cooks are producers. They create products that can be beautiful and appealing to the senses. Anyone who can produce such things has the “right to feel proud”—to recognize his or her accomplishments. Skill is associated with an occupational identity (Grzyb 1990, p. 176). Cooks gain a sense of identity from their work, and from this they learn to identify with their occupation (Hughes 1971). These workers produce within an organization, and these organizations attempt to generate assumptions about the proper identity of workers—why they should feel satisfied despite limitations on autonomy, wages, and benefits (Leidner 1993). Many cooks commented that their prime satisfaction derived from pleasing customers. In the words of one cook: “That gives me a real feeling of satisfaction that I know that I've pleased someone” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). For others, it is the ability to cook up to one's “internal standard” (Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre). For still others, it is the ability to know what one can do with food, and that one can control a situation that would be impossible for those outside the occupation: “It's interesting that guys come home, and there's nothing to eat in the house, and I come home, and I look around and throw all this stuff together, and I can make a really nice dinner. They don't even realize that it's possible to do that…. It's really an accomplishment thing. You feel like you've accomplished something when you're a cook. Like working at the [display kitchen]. Ron, when he has 160 people in there, he might be really tired out, but he can handle it. He was in control of the situation, and he could feel the accomplishment” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). Through these skills and their public display, cooks persuade themselves that they matter in an institutional order that sometimes disregards them; they are worthy of self-respect and honor, achieving things of which others only dream.
Public Acknowledgement. Although cooks typically do not have direct contact with customers, they do on occasion; often these relations are mediated by servers who routinely inform cooks of a significant compliment. Many cooks are young men without much training or education, and it is understandable that they marvel that “it's amazing people are eating what you cook. It's really self-satisfying, but it's also amazing that people will pay eighty, ninety dollars a meal” (Field notes, Owl's Nest). When this is combined with stroking—public recognition—one's satisfaction is complete. Seeing the smile is important, but having the smile verbalized can be equally significant: “The reason that chefs don't make good food and beverage directors is that being a technician [i.e., a chef], you need stroking. You need a pat on the back. You need somebody to say, ‘Hey, this is a really good meat loaf.' You need that stroking…. You make something, and That was a wonderful table,' somebody would say. ‘You really outdid yourself. That was a wonderful meal. That was great.' That's what you're here for. You're not here for the money. You need the money, you want the money, but there's more to it” (Personal interview, Blakemore Hotel). Workers judge their satisfaction both internally and externally, and they need both internal and external positive feedback to be satisfied.
When workers gain this satisfaction, they feel that they are making a difference, and that they are competent. This feeling increases the likelihood that they will remain in the kitchen.
RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION
All cooks were at one time outsiders to their trade; they were members of the general public. As is true for many occupations whose practitioners are youthful, first entrance occurs early, often in one's teens.10 One either stays, transforming work into a career, or exits. With the growth of fast-food restaurants and informal family dining outside the home, the hospitality industry has become a major employer of adolescents. This easy entry emphasizes the lack of “professionalism” evident in many corners of the occupation.
ENTERING THE KITCHEN
Several paths lead to the kitchen, but, in my sample, few admitted to a childhood yearning to become a chef, as some youngsters dream of being scientists, political leaders, or doctors. While some believed that they had a knack for cooking or enjoyed working with food, often recruitment was mundane. Some informants were helped by older chefs, but in no case did a formal apprenticeship occur, which used to be common in the grand European restaurants. Recruitment to kitchen work in my sample is through family connections, social networks, promotion from related occupations, and chance connections.
Family Connections. Family connections are important for many European chefs—often fathers or grandparents had owned an inn or were otherwise involved in the “hospitality industry” (Wechsberg 1980, p. 36; Wechsberg 1975, p. 36; De Groot 1972, p. 244; Kimball 1985). While family involvement was not as prevalent in my American sample—here children are not encouraged to follow in their father's footsteps, and personal connections for occupational involvement are not as prominent—in some instances parents set children on the road to the kitchen. Typically this meant that a child acquired a love of cooking from his or her parents:
| DIANE: | My father was an excellent cook. |
| GAF: | Did he teach you how to cook? |
| DIANE: | I guess so, just from watching him. Also we had maids. It was very customary in the South, black ones. They did all the cooking. I watched them, and that's how I think I learned how to bake pies and make collard greens, fried chicken. My father was also a butcher. He'd get some game and bring it home and put it in the backyard and slice it open and let the blood drain out, and I was just totally fascinated. It just intrigued me. I was exposed at a very young age.(Personal interview, La Pomme de Terre) |
Only in one instance did a cook enter the occupation because of a family member. Doug's grandmother cooked at Stan's for twenty years, and while in high school, he was hired as a busboy through this connection and later promoted to dishwasher and cook. After leaving to attend the University of Minnesota, he discovered that he preferred cooking. He has worked at Stan's for over a decade, finally becoming in charge of the kitchen (Personal interview, Stan's). While relatives may influence one's interest in cooking, within American society this linkage is attenuated.
Social Networks. Friends are much more likely than family to help the future cook actually land a job. As Mark Granovetter (1974; see Prus and Irini 1980) suggests, acquaintances or weak ties are important in one's job search. These connections were most prominent at the three freestanding restaurants, perhaps because the personnel office at the hotel made personal ties less significant. The networks of chef-teachers at the trade school proved valuable for some workers in that these men could vouch for their students' ability: “After I started school, I didn't work for a while…but then the instructors were real good about [making connections]. Employers would call in and say we're looking for a cook. Just about like that you could get a job if you're in the vocational system” (Personal interview, Owl's Nest). This cook eventually wound up working for one of his former instructors, and this led to meeting his current boss.
Relatives play a role in hiring through their networks, more than providing direct motivation: