City & Guilds & the Army
There are a lot of people in my generation and before who have leant their cooking from their mothers or grandmothers’ knee, and this still continues to be a big factor in starting of a career in the cooking field. On the other hand, persons like myself who come into the field for whatever reason, do not have this family tradition to form a basis on, and therefore must obtain their skills in other places. On my part it was through an apprenticeship in New Zealand along with cooking examinations and certifications set by the City and Guilds of London, to first instruct and then set the standard and test my cooking skill and knowledge levels. Cooking is something I grew to love and have now been cooking for 30 years, with 18 of those in the international field and 16 of those as Executive Chef in properties ranging from 200 rooms to 1000 rooms, mostly around Asia. But no-one will give you the breaks you need without qualifications – and international qualifications at that! While degree programs and expensive international catering colleges are one way, obtaining world recognized and accepted British based certificates is another, which is what my career has been based on. In the defense services where I made my apprenticeship, it could have been the feeding of a 1000 men at a time, or the scrambling of 5000 eggs for a breakfast, but for the person with more aptitude, it was the senior kitchens with high levels of professionalism and skill levels involved, plus also a very well equipped catering schools section with instructors all qualified with City and Guilds with some even from other catering corps that had proved themselves in international competitions and shows. This then was the basis of my career. Two times three and half months of full-time cooking and study in our catering school during the course of my apprenticeship, with written and practical examinations that were sent across to Britain for marking and being rated not by your particular school but by all the papers submitted that year. If you then received a credit or distinguished pass, you knew that you were rated amongst the best being accredited in the international arena!
These 706/1 and 706/2 Credit passed certificates that I obtained have enabled me to move with ease on the international field. The base of knowledge and skills are practical anywhere in the world, with a good mix of the traditional and the modern which then become the sound foundation for taking a person’s career forward. There is still a lot to learn after that and the cuisines of many countries to get familiar with to be able to operate an international kitchen, but the base is there, recognized and accepted worldwide. The City and Guild certificates are the minimum required. From there, further advanced courses are available with City and Guilds or courses within other colleges, such as Cornell, for in today’s’ era of cooking, a quick glance at position opportunities around the globe all call for recognized qualifications in the field of cooking and kitchen management together with practical experience gained both internationally and domestically.
I think with my qualifications being an apprenticeship and the City & Guilds certificates, I have always been an advocate of having apprentices in the kitchen, or developing trainees with a proper learning structure to give them a good start in the cooking field. Especially in India, but probably elsewhere, there is a lot of emphasis on univertsity degrees, Hospitality Catering colleges and all, but I like the old fashion learn as you work, as an apprentice without a degree like me, as a Kitchen trainee, a hotel sponsored Hotel Management or in a Kitchen Executive program that the Oberois and the Taj group do so well. I hate to say, but most of the graduates from the Catering colleges do not know the basics when they arrive, most have not learnt anything and they all basically need to start from the ground level again anyway! As Antonio Carluccio once said to me in Chennai, – no matter how many restaurants we own, how many riches we have, or what our grand titles are, we are all just Cooks! That was a great cappuccino we had together and what a great man!
Stories from my Army apprenticeship days!
I joined the army not to be a soldier but for a job, they give very good training there, as in we had our own catering schools, the certificate programs were the British City & Guilds and once qualified, these certificates took you anywhere in the world!
I was a very bad soldier, I used to walk the back way from barracks to work, so I would not have to salute all the officers walking down the road!
I never worked in a bulk kitchen but only Officers, Training and Sergeants kitchens (or messes as they are called). These operate like little restaurants in the civilian world. But we did field camps and so we cooked on camp burners run on kerosene I think, we cooked bread in covered trays and managed all sorts of meals with just basic equipment.
I had my first lover in the Army, not my first girlfriend which was Joanna in Hamilton, but Asme, a fellow soldier and we used to go away to other towns and book a room for a night or two. In visiting her at the barracks it was sometimes a problem and I was charged again with swearing at a superior ranked person, when her Corporal got upset with me over something and I told her to F off! Got off that one though!
We were not allowed Alcohol or girls in the barrack rooms, but because I was in the fireman’s barracks, but as a cook, I really came under nobody’s control, but still, there were certain things you could not do. Alcohol bottles had to be placed away out of sight in the bottom cupboards, girls had to be sneaked in through the windows late at night and then out again early in the morning and so on. Never got caught for either of these two!
At Waiouru because we were so close to the volcanoes, if you heard rumbling during the night, you were never too sure if it was the volcano rumbling away or tanks rumbling past the windows!
One field exercise we did quite close to Ruapahu we woke up one morning to the rumbling and the mountain was emitting a good head of smoke on a small eruption, so we had a good bird’s eye view before making our way back to camp!
For six months as part of my training I was seconded to Waitangi, a government run tourist hotel in those day, full of Swiss and other European chefs, my first taste of a tradition European hotel kitchen. Also with its own staff accommodation and staff bar, a guy who used to take us sailing in his sketch and I arrived as a sober non-smoking church going innocent. As such I was designated staff barman, but when I left six months later, I was depressed at leaving, had left the church, had a few cigarettes, took some swigs of rum and so was off and have not stopped 40 years later!
I also was able to be seconded to a training sailing ship as the cook, as part of a support program, except this time it was an all-girls training cruise from schools around NZ. Not good for a 19-year-old male! On the cruise we encountered the tail end of a cyclone and had to make a run for port. Because I was classed as “crew” I did not need to wear the safety harness, so my normal 19-year-old self was swinging in the lanyards in the middle of a cyclone – thinking about it later, a little slip I was would have been off overboard, no way to turn around, no life jacket – just lost at sea!!!
Half way through when at Waiouru I joined the fire brigade as a volunteer. One particular nasty deep-fat fryer that the cooks had tossed water on, and we then went to and extinguished it, left the kitchen full of choking smoke, yet all the members of our engine then went outside for a cigarette! Maybe we should have just stayed inside and inhaled!
It used to take us 60 seconds from the alarms waking us to getting the first engine out, even at midnight, and you did not know what or where you were going. One time it was 30 miles or so down the road in the snow in open back fire engines, and when we got there, none of us in the back could function as we were so, so cold! We had only dressed quickly in the outer layers and usually that was okay. Another bollocking!
Waiouru was the only fire station (where we had volunteer and permanent members) which catered to all types of fires, house, road accidents, airport landings, scrub and bush fires, industrial etc. We also had to learn to drive the tanks to evacuate them if a hangar fire broke out. We were given a chance to fire some rounds and I actually hit my target on the third attempt!
Better than during basic where in rifle target practice I had to use so many rounds to hit the targets, but then instead of again being bollocked out like some of the others, I was sent to get glasses (and I needed them)!
I learnt to play squash in the army, a three-quarter sized court and became okay at it. Once I started laying on the full-sized court, I was quite good ad my reflexes then were very fast!
The Army days was also the last that I played rugby, but 10k runs were more my thing along with swimming and the squash or course!
I was charged about 7 or 8 times in the army and placed in my resignation just before army jail time. Small things, like swearing at a more senior person (the female boss of my girlfriend at the time), not getting back to duty in time, not turning up for duty, mainly AWOL and the last one I was threatened to spend some time in the Army lock up! I then resigned and on the last weekend on duty I had real fun, was called out by the duty sergeant on the Monday morning as I was leaving camp and said, so, so lucky I did not have my uniforms anymore, otherwise, drinking in unauthorized place (privates Bar), burning the last meal, late on duty, drinking on duty and so on, but I was out of there! Most of the other charges were just fines or loss of pay.
I was a corporal at the catering schools so drank in the corporal’s bar, but I also used to drink in the private soldier’s bar, not allowed of course, but I mixed it around a bit. This is where I really learnt to drink and after two years drinking and on resigning I had my discharge medical, where I was classed as a 2nd degree alcoholic! Not by illness as I did not wake to a drink, but just by quantity, the army sure taught you how to drink. However, one time when I was sober for a change, the Americans were in town and one large guy was being obnoxious with one of our ladies, so I needed to restrain him. He broke a bottle to use so I grabbed his right hand, he could not use it, grabbed his left when he raised it and again he was stuck, so he put the boot in, and as I said, luckily quite sober as I turned in time and the boot print was on my right leg!
There was a Navy communications camp nearby the army camp and I used to get on well with the navy, being invited to share their daily rum tots that were still issued then. But the trouble was, when we went to the bar, the navy brought me a round of drinks, then my army friends brought a round, then the navy, then the army and I ended up drinking twice the amount of everyone else!!!!
But those days were also a little wild and we could buy a mini tanker trailer of beer, 35 gallons or so and hook it up to your car, and take to the house for a party. So we would drive home through the streets, the pouring hose from the pressurized beer coming in through the back window and drink beer on tap on the way home! Not these days though, thank goodness!
