The Death of the American Chef

Two weeks ago I attended the 89th Annual National Restaurant Association trade show in Chicago, my industry's main yearly event. The first thing I saw as I walked into McCormick Place was a huge sign advertising the two celebrated keynote speakers of the event: McDonald's Corporation CEO Jim Skinner and Senator John McCain. As I toured the show, I couldn't help thinking how the choice of speakers perfectly encapsulates the wrong-headed values that prevail in much of the restaurant business today.

The choice of McDonald's wasn't a surprise. I'm always hoping the mainstream aspects of my industry will be evolve in terms of taste, a rather naïve prayer, I suppose. But I was truly thrown by the choice of Senator McCain, and disappointed, especially given the early support the Las Vegas union showed for Barack Obama. What was it that attracted my industry to McCain? Was it his stance against mandatory health care? Immigration reform? Higher expense accounts?

I grew up in a liberal Democratic household, and, as I've made the transition from employee to employer, I've been committed to keeping the socially conscious values my parents instilled in me. Industry support for McCain sends the wrong message. Is being socially concerned, sympathizing with the plight of your workers (the restaurant industry has a high percentage of unskilled labor) such bad business? I've never understood how the Restaurant Association preaches safety in the workplace, yet most cooks can't afford to see a doctor.

As I walked around the show, it was impossible to escape the fact that the restaurant business is taking aggressive steps to cut labor and service and maximize profits. It's not hard to imagine a time when chefs, as we know them---people trained in purchasing and preparing raw food products---will be obsolete, except in individually owned restaurants. The restaurant industry will deny this as an agenda, but from booth to booth at the National Restaurant Show, the message was clear: fire the chefs and buy food from a central factory.

The amount of processed food available to the industry has grown tenfold in the past fifteen years, and, not coincidentally, at the same time, there has been an explosion of corporate chain restaurants, from "high end" steak houses to fast food joints. These restaurant corporations have found that purchasing processed food, or manufacturing their own food products at a central factory and shipping it to their outlets, is good for their bottom line. They're able to increase profits by needing less labor for cooking on site: have a factory make and freeze mass quantities of, for example, lasagna that freshly-made might take several chefs in each outlet. In addition to cutting costs, this manufactured food gives them a product that is consistent at each outlet, and consistency is key to spreading the brand.

The savings are passed on to the customers. For a lot of busy working people, dining out is a way of life, and millions of Americans daily eat in chain restaurants. The relatively low cost makes them hard to resist for cash-strapped families.

Today a restaurant can purchase processed or frozen food for each of the three meal periods. The big selling point is "Just thaw, heat, and serve!" Next time you're traveling on business, wander down to the hotel's breakfast buffet and try to figure out what's freshly-cooked and what's thawed, heated, and served. Chances are most of it is the latter: muffins, croissants, scones, waffles, pancakes, sausages, bacon, breads: all these and more are regularly used. I always have fruit and oatmeal in the morning when I travel, and there's no longer a guarantee that's even going to be fresh! I found an exhibitor at the show selling packaged pre-cut fruit for use on buffets. The array of frozen ready-to-fry options for lunch, dinner, and bar snacks was even scarier (Is there a jalapeno alive that hasn't been stuffed and breaded?).

Sadly, at the National Restaurant Show, any representations of the slow food movement or of organic and sustainable eating seemed to be relegated to small booths in an obscure section of the convention center, kind of like they were sticking the crazies in the corner.

The long-term health consequences of so many people eating so many processed foods, so far removed from their natural sources, aren't known, but a look around at our ever-expanding waistlines gives us a hint.

With so many people eating out regularly, it's not much of a stretch to say that wholesome fresh cooking has left the home. And, with the proliferation of inexpensive corporate chain restaurants, it looks like it's leaving the restaurant industry, too.

Comments

[Lilybart]

Thanks Mark for your compassion and for bringing attention to the corporate food issue.

It may be that high oil prices and the biofuel debacle will force people to eat better because industrial junk food will be too expensive!

The fastest growing segment of the food world is Farmer's Markets.

[JScott]

Oh and don't forget the tons of sodium (salt ) that they put in all that food. Whereas if you had made it yourself from scratch the same recipe would have tons less sodium. But of course with complicit corporate media this is off the public's news radar and will NEVER be mentioned on the Food Network.

[MajorKong]

I travel for a living and I will go to great lengths to avoid eating at chain restaurants. I hate stepping out of a hotel room in some city and seeing the same stretch of Applebees, Outback, Red Lobster, Olive Garden etc. that I see in every other city.

[strausmark]

Right on. we need to give substities to people who grow beets not soy bean, potato farmers ,not corn farmers, cattle farmers who's animals are pasture raised. I detect a movement keep up the good fight.

[zaneblue]

Once shipping gets to be prohibitively expensive because of the cost of fuel, you may see that change.

[MullahMarco]

Is there a jalapeno alive?
Don't know, might find some fresh ones in the produce section.

[TheDisenchanted]

the food service industry is also responsible for wasting huge amounts of food, creating garbage at an astronomical pace, putting small, local farms out of business in favor of gigantic farms that are killing the soil, raising the price of food as well as utilizing large amounts of gas to transport this terrible food that is making our country a bunch of fat assed, lazy morons. eat local and eat organic.