# Deboning a chicken? Important to Learn in School?



## rander (Apr 17, 2004)

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I just started helping out at this restaurant to get some experience before I go to culinary school. I was talking to the chef and asked them, what they thought of the program. Their main concern was that they seemed to be lacking some basic skills like deboning a chicken or frenching a rack of lamb.
All the chefs came from the CIA or California Culinary Academy.

Now my question is, should I be concerned? I thought I would be learning how to do those things in culinary school?! I guess the butcher can/should do those things. I heard a story that Chef Thomas Keller did not know how to debone a chicken either  and got yelled at, so I guess the concern in not too big?

www.xanga.com/Culinary_life


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## artameates (Mar 10, 2004)

Great First step! getting into the dirt a bit will pay off big once you get to school.
How qualified and well rounded do you want to be? Try tasks like deboning (or roasting) a chicken on your own time. Do you know how to take siver skin off pork? Knowledge that saves your time, and your bosses time is beneficial. 
You could wait until school. You could buy a chicken and learn tonight. its your choice.
Some skills need to be learned and practiced to be retained. Those guys were told how to do it in school. Still, they could not apply it. You can be different.


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## anneke (Jan 5, 2001)

Most of us learn how to debone a chicken in school. But because learning to debone is not exactly like learning a mathematical formula, it's easy to forget the proper technique unless you do it often. Working in a banquet kitchen is good for that kind of practice.

To this day, when I have to perform a task that I may have learned at school but never applied at work, I always ask the chef to show me exactly what he wants. Maybe it makes me look like I haven't learned anything in school, but at least I deliver what's expected. 

The problem with butchery is that most of us don't graduate from culinary school to immediately become grill cooks. We have to work our way up, and that takes time. Inevitably, you will forget some of your technique.

Congratulations on your job: you have the right approach to learning.


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