Do you have to be a carnivore to be a good cook?

[miles]

A friend and I were kicking this question around last night after I told him of a cook I knew who was working in a fine dining restaurant. The only catch was the cook is a serious vegetarian. This started us wondering if a vegetarian can really be a good cook in a mainstream restaurant where he would have to cook meat, fish, and poultry or if he or she would have to find a restaurant a bit more in tune with his or her dining practices in order to develop as a cook?

[Fred]

I don't know how any cook can produce the best product without tasting what he or she is doing. Doesn't that get to the heart of the problem?

[thombrogan]

A cook who tastes the food (and has a highly developed sense of what tastes good...) will have an advantage over one who refuses to taste the food, but this can also be said about cooks with severe food allergies along with those whom choose not to eat stuff.

[DwarvenChef]

I'm with you all as well. Unless they are working in a place that is taylored to their veiws, Moosewood? Anyway, if I wanted a good vegi dish I would be tickled to have it prepared by a vegitarian. I know all the flavor available has been coaxed up for the dish

I've read of several high end Chef's that are vegetairians and I just can't fathum how they can be all they can be. A knock-out Sous chef??

[ksskss]

Well, it is certainly a disadvantage. This does go to broader questions - can a Kosher person cook a ham well? Do you have to be Chinese to really know how to cook in a wok or an Italian to make good pasta? Can a meat eater make a vegetarian dish with the same sensibilities of a vegetarian's view rather than an 'omnivore's' view? And what about the degree of vegetarianism - no meat no dairy too, no eggs.

My wife's primarily vegetarian and I wouldn't even think to ask her to cook meat for me. I find it unappealing when the cook isn't interested in eating what he is serving you, but technically, since he can still use his other senses to interact with the food, it's doable - just not ideal.

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Ken

[blwchef]

Yeah, I've worked with a few. None of them can cook meat or fish to save their lives or much less compose a carnivorous dish worthy of a high end restaurant.

[Arturo]

I'd have a very hard time hiring a vegetarian cook at a non veg/vegan restaurant.

You need to be able to taste sauces for seasoning or new dishes to to be able to reproduce them.

[miles]

That's pretty much my thought, as well. If you don't eat the food you're preparing, how do you know what it tastes like and/or when it's properly cooked? Granted, I think a clever person can probably figure out ways around some of it, or can make "professional allowances" in their lifestyle for tasting, but I do think it would put someone at a serious disadvantage unless they were running their own kitchen creating the type of food they would want to eat.

[thombrogan]

It is either a good thing that I'm not a professional or a bad thing that not everyone else likes eggplant parm as much as me.

[kcma]

you can. BUT, the most important part of cooking is tasting what you cook to make sure that it's what it's supposed to be. how do vegetarians do that? they can't.