Rise of the machines: are water baths de-skilling the hospitality industry?

Consistency, control, accuracy, peace of mind – these are some of the words you often hear associated with water baths and their associated sous vide cooking technique. Once the preserve of high-end dining establishments, water baths are increasingly becoming the stock in trade of eateries the length and breadth of the land as the value of their guaranteed accuracy and consistency becomes more appreciated. But is the proliferation of water baths leading to a corresponding decline in the number of skilled chefs? After all, why pay for a chef de partie to pan fry your piece of meat when you can get a commis to press the button on a water bath, right? Or wrong? The Staff Canteen decided to find out... Daniel Clifford, chef-patron of Midsummer House in Cambridge, is one top chef who is taking the issue of water baths very seriously. In fact the 40-year-old, two-Michelin-starred chef is taking it so seriously that he no longer uses them, not because he doesn't recognise their value; for Daniel there is a wider issue at stake. “I’m a real strong believer that it’s my job to train the chefs of the future,” he said, “and they’re not going to have that chance if they don’t know how to roast a piece of meat in a pan. “Ten years ago I could only afford four or five cooks in the kitchen and having a water bath took the pressure off me cooking the meat. The thing is that there’s not enough health and safety information out there. The scary thing is that you can have twenty-odd-year-old chefs walking around thinking they’re the next Marco Pierre White, slinging things into water baths, who don’t have a clue what temperature to cook it at. If you go cooking a piece of pork at 50 degrees for three days, you’re going to kill someone." Someone who experienced the effect of technology on their cooking first hand is Phil Collard, 24-year-old sous chef at Colourworks in Leicester. Phil originally trained in classical techniques before moving on to fine dining restaurants where he spent several years using a lot of sous vide. When Phil moved back to a kitchen that used traditional techniques, he at first found the transition hard. “The head chef put me straight on grill,” said Phil, “and I panicked and thought, God I’m not sure I can remember how to cook a medium steak anymore. Isn’t that something you do at 50 degrees in a water bath?” Fortunately Phil’s experience and training kicked back in quickly, but what about chefs who perhaps don’t have Phil’s level of training or skill and have been brought up on a strict diet of water baths? This is where colleges come in. Many chefs are worried that use of modern kitchen technology is filtering back into the colleges, leading to newly-qualified chefs who aren’t even trained in the classical basics. But is this really the case? According to a spokesperson at City & Guilds, the organisation responsible for culinary courses across the UK, their 706 series of culinary courses, which have been delivered to most of the colleges throughout the country, do not include sous vide cooking techniques as part of the curriculum. However colleges have free rein to supplement the course with whatever they feel is relevant to the industry, which often means sous vide techniques. Water bath manufacturer, Clifton Food Range, report a healthy demand from colleges for their water baths.However a lecturer at the School of Hospitality and Food at Bournemouth and Poole College said that they don't use water baths at all due to the extra health and safety requirements as well as a desire to focus on traditional cooking techniques. It hardly sounds like water baths are swamping colleges throughout the land, so what is all the fuss about? As Eric Snaith, head chef at Norfolk’s Titchwell Manor, said: “Water baths are just another tool in the armoury of a chef. I don’t think they’re necessarily taking over the industry. Not everyone has the numbers and quality of chefs that the top