Occupation and Kitchen Mise en Place
Senior 1 · Home Science
Occupation and Kitchen Mise en Place
Lesson 1 of 5
18 min
Let's begin
Every hotel in Kigali, every school canteen and every roadside restaurant depends on people who work in kitchens. Rwanda's growing tourism and conference trade needs cooks, pastry makers and kitchen managers, and many of them began by learning the basics you are learning now. Before you learn how to organise a kitchen, it helps to know what a kitchen is for, how it developed, and who works in it.
In this lesson you will learn the meaning of the words kitchen and occupation, the main stages in the history of the kitchen, and the jobs in a professional kitchen.
| Stage | What it was like |
|---|---|
| Open fire | For most of history, food was cooked over an open fire. In early European houses the fire burned in the middle of the main room, and smoke escaped through the roof. |
| Separate kitchen | Because of smoke and the danger of fire, kitchens were often moved into a separate room or building. In many Rwandan homes the kitchen is still a small separate building behind the house, with a three-stone fire or a charcoal stove. |
| Chimney and closed stove | Chimneys carried smoke out of the building. Closed iron stoves and ranges then burned fuel more efficiently and allowed several pots and an oven to be heated at once. |
| Gas and electricity | In the twentieth century, gas and electric cookers, running water and refrigerators changed kitchens in towns. |
| The planned, fitted kitchen | In 1926 the architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky designed the Frankfurt Kitchen, only 1.9 m by 3.4 m, after studying how long each task took and how far the cook had to walk. Its idea of arranging the kitchen to save steps is the basis of kitchen design today. |
| Clean cooking today | More than 2.6 billion people (2020) still cook with wood, charcoal, dung or kerosene, and the World Health Organization estimates that the smoke from such cooking causes millions of deaths a year. Improved stoves, gas (LPG), biogas and electric cookers reduce this smoke. |
Large hotel and restaurant kitchens are organised in a kitchen brigade (brigade de cuisine), a system of ranks and sections developed by the French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846 to 1935). The word chef means "chief" or "head" in French.
| Title | Job |
|---|---|
| Chef de cuisine (head chef) | Manages the whole kitchen: plans menus, orders food, trains staff, keeps the kitchen hygienic |
| Sous-chef (second chef) | Deputy to the head chef; runs the kitchen when the head chef is absent |
| Chef de partie (section chef) | In charge of one section (station), for example the saucier (sauces), poissonnier (fish), rôtisseur (roasts), entremétier (vegetables, soups and eggs), garde manger (cold foods and salads) or pâtissier (pastry and desserts) |
| Commis (junior cook) | Works in a section under a chef de partie; looks after the section's tools |
| Apprentice | A trainee who learns at school and in the kitchen; does preparation and cleaning work |
| Plongeur (kitchen porter) | Washes dishes and utensils; may do basic preparation |
Small restaurants combine these jobs: one cook may do the work of several sections.
Baker, caterer (who cooks for events), food and beverage service staff (waiters and bar staff), food production workers in factories, nutritionists, food inspectors, Home Science teachers and restaurant owners all build on the same knowledge.
Task: A small hotel kitchen has five staff: a head chef, a sous-chef, two cooks and a kitchen porter. Tonight's menu is vegetable soup; grilled tilapia with sauce; rice and steamed vegetables; fruit salad. Assign the work, naming the brigade sections involved.
Solution:
Each section has one clear owner, and the head chef is free to control quality. This is the brigade idea in a small kitchen.
Tip
Memory hook for the ranks, top to bottom: "Chefs Sometimes Promote Clever Apprentices Promptly": Chef de cuisine, Sous-chef, chef de Partie, Commis, Apprentice, Plongeur.
Exam technique: when asked for the "meaning" of a term, give a one-sentence definition and then one example, e.g. "An occupation is a person's regular paid work; for example, a pastry chef."
Define the term "kitchen".
Solution: A room, building or area used to store, prepare and cook food, and for related tasks such as washing up.
Give two reasons why kitchens in the past, and in many Rwandan homes today, were built apart from the main house.
Solution: To keep smoke out of the living and sleeping rooms, and to reduce the danger of fire spreading to the house.
Who is in charge of a kitchen when the head chef is absent?
Solution: The sous-chef (second chef).
Which section chef would make (a) a chocolate cake; (b) a mixed salad; (c) a fish stew?
Solution: (a) pâtissier; (b) garde manger; (c) poissonnier.
Summary
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
