Chefs of Pakistan: Brewing up a career

Chefs serve new role of enlightening the masses about secrets of culinary delight through television.

Lately, the chefs of Pakistan have evolved from their customary role of conjuring up dishes that tantalise the taste buds, to enlightening the masses about the secrets of culinary delight through television.  The modification of their traditional role has made an already food- frenzied nation all the more ravenous and serious about their palate.

It has increased our knowledge about food and diversified our menus. Housewives, who previously used to frown upon cooking, are now taking delight in mastering this art. The numerous food channels with their chefs and experts have become food gurus, transferring their skills conveniently to every person desiring to spruce up their dinner, diversifying dining tables with an assortment of food both local and international, and reforming eating habits along the way.

This media boom in turn has also made its effects on the profession and has raised the appeal of being a chef. “The media has helped in making our profession more accepted in  society. The flood of cooking programmes and food channels has also increased the interest level in our field, making it a lot more desirable than before,” says Executive Chef, Anjum Khan of Marriott Hotel, Karachi. Owing to this celebrity factor more and more people, both girls and boys, are choosing this previously not so attractive field as their career choice.

Pakistan has three institutes offering training in this field, first is The College of Tourism & Hotel Management, (COTHEM) in Lahore; an international standard institute rendering a wide range of hospitality programmes in collaboration with international academic partners and accredited by American Hotel & Lodging Education Institute, USA. The second is Chefs’ Institute of Pakistan (CIP) affiliated by Trade Testing Board under the authority of Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA) Government of Punjab with its branches in Lahore and Sialkot.  The third institute is the government run Pakistan Institute of Hotel Management (PITHM) in Karachi. It is the senior most institute in the sector providing certificates authorised by the Government of Pakistan.

Additionally, every year the Ministry of Labour and Manpower offers Skilled Labour Apprentice programme of three years, funded jointly by the government and the hotels providing the applicants with technical training in hotels along with a stipend. Assistant Director, PITHM, Mansoor Siddiqui, says, “For the past few years, the PITHM has filled all its seats and the mounting inclination towards the field has led us to maintain a waiting list as well.”

Agreeing that the food channels are the main reason for this rising interest in the field, Siddiqui says, “Many youngsters as well as certain models are joining the courses simply so that they can be on a food channel.”

Munira Moiz is one such person who aspires to build her career in a food channel. Having being invited as a guest on a few cooking shows she says, “I want to make place for myself in a food channel, which is why I have taken up a course in Advance Food Production. I want the basic certification required to have an upper hand in the field and I also want to groom my current skills.”

Moreover, another contributing factor towards the rising interest in the field is its high demand abroad. The popularity of subcontinental food especially in European countries provides Pakistani chefs with many opportunities. “The profession has a very high demand internationally. It is the number one category to apply for immigration to Canada and America,” says, Assistant Food and Beverage Manager, Aslam Khan, Marriott Hotel.

“This is why our talent is being filtered and there is still a shortage of good chefs in Pakistan,” Khan adds. According to him, due to low pay scales compared to other countries, local chefs are forced to apply to some other countries. Due to lack of quality education, chefs that are trained locally take more time to reach the top positions compared to someone who has attained his certification from abroad.

Chef Munawar Latif an expert in international cuisine, recently got voted in amongst three others to be on Lively Weekends, a cooking show on Masala TV.  He says that while the sector has developed a lot in the past few years there are still many difficulties they are facing. “After the basic level if we need training we have to go abroad to upgrade ourselves, given that we have the resources. There is no institute here that would help us as chefs to further enhance our skills and keep in touch with the latest developments in the industry.”

Moreover, commenting about Chefs’ Association of Pakistan, Latif said that it should also be more active and arrange seminars and workshops for advanced training of the chefs, along with competitions and awards to appreciate good work.

Apart from the latest avenue of the media there are many opportunities for a chef such as hotels, restaurants, resorts, industrial catering and hospitals. Though this rapidly flourishing field has a long way to go in order to compete with international standards of training and career growth, it seems to be heading in the right direction.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2010.