Dress the Part

By John Kinsella, CMC, CCE, WGMC, AAC

One of the most common noncompliance issues among programs seeking ACF accreditation is the dress code.

In 1986, my program was one of the first to be ACFEI accredited, along with Columbus State, Johnson County Community College in Kansas and Orange County Community College in California. Looking back, and after visiting the recent national Accrediting Commission meeting, I have come to the conclusion that we've come a long way since those days.

Today we have more than 200 programs that our commission takes care of, and because of our accreditation team's hard work, we are now able to accredit baccalaureate degree programs through the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, as well as associate and diploma/certificate programs.

I am so proud of the great work our commission does. These dedicated professionals enforce our standards and continue to raise the bar. As I sat in and watched the commission at work, I was amazed to learn that the two noncompliance issues that are most common are sanitation and not adhering to uniform polices.

Simple stuff, but the biggest issue seems to be the dress code. Here we go again, back to basics. As a professional chef, I take pride in my uniform. But it seems that the sloppier or more colorfully we dress, the more we feel we are in vogue or are making a statement. Many of us have served in the military, and if we were improperly dressed, we would take a quick march to the guardroom and be severely punished, such as confined to camp for 30 days.

Why is there such an aversion to dressing properly? Or, why would we dress in black uniforms in a 120ºF kitchen? When I go into a professional kitchen, I expect chefs and cooks to be in properly starched uniforms, kerchiefs on, aprons properly tied, shoes polished and wearing a toque.

About six years ago, I visited a kitchen where one of my students was working. As I entered the kitchen through the back door, I observed a gentleman in blue jeans and a dirty T-shirt and apron who introduced himself as the chef. I asked him in my gentle Irish way why he dressed like that. He replied, "I'm too busy to dress up," and added that his boss didn't care as long as his customers and the numbers were satisfied.

I felt sorry for him, because along the way, the person who taught him must have had no personal professional pride and no reasonable care for the aspiring cook he was training. I invited him to our institute, and gave him the royal tour. He was so impressed, he asked me to mentor him to become a better chef.

Eventually, he came to school, graduated, and today is certified and a great ACF member. He is adamant about his kitchen staff being properly dressed, and you could eat off his kitchen floor. I regard him as a dedicated professional chef and friend, and I am sure there are many more stories we all could tell about impacting a fellow culinarian's life.

Accreditation sets standards to allow us to grow as an institution and a federation, and it assists us in developing great future culinarians. And, most of all, it keeps us on our toes. So the next time you meet a commission member, shake his or her hand and say "thank you" for protecting our standards and assisting us to grow as an organization. We will continue to grow because of their great efforts, and our next generation of chefs will look back with pride at having been part of an American Culinary Federation Foundation accredited program.