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LONDON - Young chefs who have grown up with junk food have warped culinary skills, a top chef says. Veteran restaurateur Raymond Blanc also claims most aspiring kitchen stars do not recognise good food.
The Frenchman, whose Oxfordshire restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, has maintained two Michelin stars for 22 years, said trainees had such poor gastronomic skills they had to be retrained in basic skills such as seasoning.
"We attract good- quality young people," he said. "But, having said that, many of these young people need to be retrained in some way to understand what wonderful food is about.
"Eighty or 90 per cent of chefs don't recognise good ingredients, whether it is butter, a beautiful olive oil or a piece of meat or fish."
Blanc, who trained Marco Pierre White and Heston Blumenthal, believes young chefs are victims of a food culture that has ignored quality.
"There is a lost generation, in a way. From 50 years ago, we have embraced intensive farming followed by heavily processed food, heavily marketed food - where cheap food became a virtue, the cheaper the better.
"And most of these chefs, often because they come from backgrounds which are not wealthy, they have been subjected to this type of food. Which means they are used to high salt level, high sugar level, high colouring level and these young chefs have got to reconnect with what makes great meat or vegetables or great food in general."
His views on trainees will be taken seriously because he has run a top restaurant for decades and has been championing local and organic foods for 20 years.
Blanc said: "Like the consumer, the chef often goes for aesthetics, what looks good. But something which looks good may be rotten inside or may not be as good as another piece of food, another piece of meat or fish, which may not be so attractive but the quality may be better.
"Chefs need to reconnect with that deeper beauty. I spend most of my time working hard at teaching young chefs that beef tastes better from spring through to late autumn, that fish have seasons.
"Every act of cooking has got an impact, on the environment, on the supply chain, on everything."
- INDEPENDENT
