Food….. Quality vs. Quantity

So ladies and gentlemen.. Here we are again. And this time we will be discussing something really interesting, something we all think about and try to work out, and yet for some reason we do not know how. Quality versus quantity…

Think about this.. Really hard.. When it comes down to it, do we prefer quantity, or quality.?

How life works today I would guess that most people prefer quantity. Most of us have families and more than one mouth to feed. So, we tend to go for quantity..

Lets face it, when we try to compete with a big chain like Checkers or Spar, there is just no way.. They buy ingredients at cost price and they have staff that are paid to do things like clean and make food no matter what.

When doing the math, is the R20.00 really worth the hours that you will be spending behind the stove?

Let me answer that for you.. NO it is not.

Life is short and any time you can get extra to spend with your family, well in my humble opinion you should take it.

The reason that the big chains can charge you so little money for the food that you pay most of your salary to is that they get to do something you don’t. They pay trade prices.

There are many articles on the Internet that allows you to read up on how they pay the farmer that produces your milk (for example) R4.50 per litre milk, and yet at the cheapest you pay R11.00 per litre. SO how do you expect to compete with that price difference? Think about making something simple like macaroni and cheese with a white sauce.. You just cannot compete.

Because of that we are stuck in this very strange limbo..

Some of us think, and do the math by the way, that it will be cheaper to actually buy all the ingredients and then make the dish ourselves. Where some of us, the ones that have less people in our families, decide that the cheaper option will be to have the major chain store cook the food and we can just buy the portion that we need to feed ourselves.

We pretend that it is the easier option and that it will be best for our wallet. Which in fact it will be.

The problem here is that it might not be the healthier nor the best option for us.

But what choice has been left to us..

We can buy all the ingredients and make it ourselves, where we then waste most of the food or the ingredients go off.

OR

We can have them make it for us, none of the effort and yet in the long run it is half of the price.

Yes it might not be healthy, yes it might not be made to our standards.. But just add a bit of salt and pepper or a bit of sauce and off you go!

This might not be a something a chef should be backing, and do not get me wrong, I am not. I believe in fresh ingredients and making food ourselves.

But I also understand that not everyone can afford that. Nor do they always have the time.

In the new era life tends to get away from us. Both parents are working and everyone is busy.. You are lucky if you can get to all your child’s school functions, and if both of you get there it is a miracle..

So I understand. Something has got to give..

And thanks to the insane markup of food the something that is giving is that someone else is cooking the dinner that you will be presenting to your family tonight.

This is ok. The important thing to remember here is that you need to spend as much quality time with your family as possible..

And if Checkers or Spar making your food for dinner is the way you manage that, then that is ok.

Just remember that every now and again..

Cooking is good for the soul and that nothing can bring people together like food..

And that includes your family.

But..

If you can afford a professionally trained chef, well then you should always take that option…

So now its time to flip the coin.. Like in debate you cannot just argue one side of an argument without hearing the other.

When you look at it then yes, quantity works better for most people compared to quality. But then again, why do we spend the money to go out to restaurants run by professionally trained chef?

That has a simple answer, we as humans like the finer things in life, we like luxury..

That is why we spend so much money to rather buy a Mercedes Benz than a Volkswagen, or why we prefer the food of someone like Luke Dale Roberts at The Test Kitchen compared to the food at McDonalds..

So it comes down to this..

Plastic or fantastic folks…Would you rather have massive amounts of McDonalds or an unforgettable experience with a chef that has trained years under some of the best in his/her field?

If you have the money, well that’s just a no brainer. You will choose to have the experience. Because ladies and gentleman, we are constantly reminded by all the uplifting quotes that life is made up of experiences and that none of us will get out alive so we should have the cake and drink the champagne..

A professional chef can offer you things that no one else can, they have spent years mastering their art and if you ask any of them they have literally put in blood, sweat and tears. They work years for their art, whether it be fine dining, foraging or pastry.. They have mastered it because they have put in the hours and were gifted with raw talent.

They will cook you a meal that you will never forget in your life. They can make your taste buds explode with flavour from a dish that looks like a piece of art on a plate. Because that is what we expect of them, we expect them to not only good food but also dish it up as if it is a piece of art. If this does not happen, no matter how good the food, we tend to be disappointed.

So how can we expect all of this to be cheap? How can we expect that the person who paid about large sums of money for a year for their studies and then spent years being underpaid in their apprenticeship to create these amazing and otherworldly pieces of art for the same price as Spur charges for their Buffalo Wings..?!

We as people need to sometimes take a step back and re-evaluate how we see things and what we expect from the people working the 18 hour days and spending Christmas away from their families to keep us happy. Nothing in life is free and we would not argue with a mechanic or plumber about their prices, so why do it when walking into a restaurant with an amazing chef.. Why try and argue down the daily rate of a private chef, the prices for an evening or even just a meal?

I myself as a chef, that was gifted the talent, the opportunity to study at one of South-Africa’s best chef schools and to work abroad and learn so much can tell you that it is really frustrating to hear how people always want to pay you less. This is after you already charge less then most of the chefs out there.

It is understandable that not everyone can afford a private chef or even to visit such fine establishments as The Test Kitchen and La Calombe ext.

But folks.. If you can, only if once in your life.. do NOT hesitate! Do not miss out on the chance to experience something that is out of this world. These men and women can give you something that no one else can, because they do not only cook delicious food.. they give you an experience and a memory that will last for a lifetime..

Quality over quantity all the way!! Well that’s coming from a professional chef..

Until next time Ladies and Gentleman.. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it.