In my presentation in Sao Paolo this morning, I described my favorite example of a community of practice: professional chefs. Not only do chefs exhibit the camaraderie that is the hallmark of a profession, they bring novices up through the ranks through carefully chosen advancement from one job to the next in the kitchen. So I was delighted to come upon this merry band that comes to the mercado to offer recipes and cooking advice to shoppers.
Talking with one of these fellows about community, I asked to see his hands, fully expecting to see the battle scars most chefs wear proudly: the tip of a finger chopped off or a vicious scar on the back of the hand. This chef’s hands were as perfect and smooth as a baby’s. “Are you really a chef?” I asked. He replied that he was a pastry chef.
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Jay,
Cooking may be the last great artisan tradition in our post-modern world. Music used to be like that, as well, but it has changed. Musicians don’t teach each other informally, as they used to. They are expected to learn formally and then launch themselves as individual performing talents rather than contributing and evolving members of a group. The result is less intrinsic musical value and more standardized virtuosity.
I notice at the same time that the place of the amateur musician in society has practically disappeared. When I was growing up everybody played, or tried to play, an instrument of some kind: guitar, piano, horns, strings, harmonica, etc. Perhaps our ubiquitous PC keyboards have killed the musical ones. Fortunately human interest in eating means that nearly everyone is an amateur cook, so the tradition of artisanship can be perpetuated as part of the ambient culture.
Nevertheless, the spirit of Web 2.0 should encourage new forms of artisanship, at least in the intellectual world, and hopefully in all creative fields, challenging the traditional monopoly of academe.
I loved your post, Jay, and your recognition of cooks as a community of practice. I’ve certainly benefited from that generosity and community of practice spirit among chefs all my life, but unfortunately most of it was not experienced in a commercial kitchen.
As a professional caterer in my “past life”, I’ve seen too many examples of ruthless competition and the exploitation of young chefs to have much idealism about the restaurant industry in general, but I absolutely agree that the love of food and cooking lends itself to a rich and varied community of practice.
We foodies are a jolly friendly lot, for the most part.
I was involved in an international list serve for food and wine affectionados for many years and it always amazed me how quickly we would come to each other’s aid, or host a traveler in our midst, or share precious recipes. Many of these folks were professionals but I wonder if they were as generous in their own workplace, where there is so much stress and pressure to save money and be efficient and “get the food out while it’s hot”.
I also loved Peter’s post – about the potential of artisan culture flourishing within Web 2.0. I’m in week two of a free (online) course in facilitating online community developed & offered by a professor at Otago Polytechnic in New Zealand. It’s already a great example of the collaborative community spirit and challenge to standard models of academia that Peter suggests are now possible.
I look forward to seeing you and hearing your stories when you’re back in California, Jay!