Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

 
2007 Annual International CHRIE Conference & Exposition 
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restaurant to cook at the table (Clementlorford, 2005; Bloy, n.d.). By demonstrating their culinary skills in full view 
of the dinning public, chefs further enhanced their professional image. Other inventions created by Soyer at this time 
increased efficiency and product consistency in the kitchens of the great houses of the time (Clementlorford, 2005). 
Chef Auguste Escoffier, known as the father of modern cuisine,
brought order to commercial kitchens by 
introducing a hierarchal labour system (Dodgshun and Peters, 2004; Gillespie, 1994; Montage, 1986; Pauli, 1989; 
Symons, 2004). This lead to the opportunity for structured professional development through on the job training, as 
apprentices worked their way through the 
‘partie system’
to rise to the much sought after executive status of 
‘Chef 
de Cuisine’
(Dodgshun and Peters, 2004; Gillespie, 1994; Pauli, 1989). Escoffier’s partie, or brigade style, approach 
to structuring the working and training environment within a commercial kitchen exists to this day (Dodgshun and 
Peters, 2004, Gillespie, 1994; Pauli, 1989). As Gillespie (1994) points out, this system “was and remains a means of 
managing the division of labour in hotel and restaurant kitchens [by requiring] developmental stages of skills to be 
mastered … for promotion … [along with] tighter financial and human resource control” (p. 20).
Together with technological and labour advancements, advancements in food microbiology have created 
what Griffith (2006) describes as “the Golden Age of food microbiology” (p. 7). This Golden Age began with the 
commercial heat processing work of the early food microbiologists Nicolas Appert and Louis Pasteur (Griffith, 
2006; Pickersgill, 2004) and continues with the work of those who contribute to today’s more scientific approach to 
food safety, which should be of major relevance to any one handling food (Dodgshun and Peters, 2004; Gillespie, 
1994; Pauli, 1989). The food processing and shelf life improvement work of pioneers such as Appert and Pasteur, 
which had its origins in the dairy industry (Griffith, 2006), has developed into the scientific control of food borne 
illnesses through stringent food safety management techniques. The ongoing success of these food safety programs 
requires competent staff and regular retraining to take into account any new developments in the food safety control 
process
.
Breakthroughs in food microbiology programs are reflected in today’s government and culinary industry 
training reforms (Griffith, 2006). One of these reforms includes the introduction of the scientific approach to food 
safety known as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point or HACCP (Dodgshun and Peters, 1999; Griffith, 2006; 
Food Group, 2000). This program, which is gaining wider recognition, is based on greater control of microbiological 
concerns at the production level (Food Group, 2000, p. 78). The combined effect of improving training, skills, 
equipment and a greater understanding of the products being handled and eventually consumed has lead to a greater 
recognition of the professionalism of chefs and cooks working in the culinary industry today (Gillespie, 1994; 
Symons, 2004).