Heard a line cook say mise en place is overrated and I nearly lost it

I was working a double last Saturday at this brunch spot downtown and this kid fresh out of culinary school told me mise en place is a waste of time for busy services. He said it just slows you down because you're prepping things you might not use. I told him that's exactly why I've seen him drop four orders of eggs benny in the weeds every Sunday for the past month. Mise is literally the only thing that keeps me from melting down when we get slammed with a 50-top at 11am. Without my station set up exact with measured butter and portioned hollandaise I'd be grabbing stuff blind and burning pans left and right. Has anyone else dealt with new cooks trying to skip the basics like this? How do you get them to respect the prep work?

2 comments

2 Comments

martinez.val20d ago

Remember going through this with my oldest son when he started learning to drive. He thought he could just get behind the wheel and figure it out as he went, didn't want to bother with checking mirrors or adjusting the seat before starting the car. Told me it was wasted time. Then he scraped the side of my minivan against a mailbox because he couldn't see properly. Same thing with mise en place I reckon. These young folks think they're saving time by skipping steps but really they're just setting themselves up for a crash. You gotta teach them the hard way sometimes, or at least let them learn from watching how smooth a service runs when everything's ready to go.

gracecarr19d ago

...and honestly, @martinez.val, that mailbox story hits home because it's exactly what happens in the kitchen when you skip prep. My nephew tried to help me cook one time and thought he could just chop vegetables as he went along. Ten minutes in he was burning garlic while frantically trying to dice an onion, and the whole thing turned into a mess. It's the same principle - setting up your workspace first isn't wasting time, it's buying yourself time later when things get hectic.