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Tony Galzin, a former pastry chef at the Chicago restaurant MK, cited ice cream making. It can take months to learn how to achieve the correct proportions of fa

Tony Galzin, a former pastry chef at the Chicago restaurant MK, cited ice cream making. It can take months to learn how to achieve the correct proportions of fat, sugar, protein, water and stabilizers, all of which are thrown off by the use of different ingredients. This is an example of pastry chefs overvaluing their own skills, so not surprising there is labor substitution happening.

code_sardaukar 10y ago
"months" sounds reasonable actually. "decades" and I would definitely agree with you. The problem with this sort of discussion is that everyone thinks they are worth more than the market will pay, and that the market is somehow broken.
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  Read this article, then spend a few days making ice cream, and you'll have a pretty solid grasp on it. I promise, months is an exaggeration. http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/08/how-many-eggs-should-i-use-to-make-ice-cream.html http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/08/how-many-eggs-should-i...
  - code_sardaukar 10y ago
    that's fascinating, though I'm not into sweet things enough to invest in the required equipment. I do agree with your overall point that chef's skills probably aren't specialized or difficult enough to command high wages in the long term.
  - Raphmedia 10y ago
    It's one thing to make a pint of icecream at home, at your own pace. It's another to product enough (and not too much) icecream in a restaurant's cuisine. If the restaurant is high-end, the icecream should have the correct ingredients to pair with the other food. Pastry making is often compared to an art... but then art doesn't pay much either.
dmamills 10y ago
This is hysterically ironic on a forum like hacker news.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- WillPostForFood 10y ago
  The article directly makes the parallel case of programmers and code academies. I'd say the same thing about programmer wages and claims you need a 4 year degree to put up a wordpress blog or whatever you think the programming equivalent of making ice cream is. Bottom line is if your wages are low, then your skills aren't as valuable as you think, whether you are a coder, or creamer.
  - code_sardaukar 10y ago
    I think the endgame for programmers is very different to pastry chefs. Yes there are bootcamps, but part of their success is being selective in who they accept. No one has yet shown how to take an average person and get them a well paying programming job. Egalitarian dogma states that programmers don't have special abilities or interests but the market has been very stubborn so far.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Why? Are developers overvaluing their skills?
rifung 10y ago
Why do you consider this an overvaluation? I imagine it takes a lot of practice to reach a high level of cooking. Sure, you can probably make an ice cream decently enough in after a few tries, but I imagine to be a good chef you should know how to make something new taste the way you want on the first try or couple of tries. Not only that but as a chef you presumably have to make it perfectly every time. I remember reading Jacques Pepin saying how he doesn't get bored of cooking because it's never the same: even if you cook the salmon 50 times, no two pieces of salmon are identical but a good chef should be able to make them all taste very nearly the same. On the other hand, I imagine that chefs have a much more nuanced palate than the regular person so I wonder at what point are most normal people unable to distinguish the differences. If you have reached a high level of cooking then I apologize and will admit I'm wrong, but it seems wrong of us, who haven't been through the same process, to say it's easy. I'm sure people who aren't programmers might wonder why software always has bugs and security vulnerabilities and think it shouldn't be too hard to write programs without them.

code_sardaukar 10y ago

"months" sounds reasonable actually. "decades" and I would definitely agree with you. The problem with this sort of discussion is that everyone thinks they are worth more than the market will pay, and that the market is somehow broken.

WillPostForFood 10y ago
Read this article, then spend a few days making ice cream, and you'll have a pretty solid grasp on it. I promise, months is an exaggeration. http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/08/how-many-eggs-should-i-use-to-make-ice-cream.html http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/08/how-many-eggs-should-i...
- code_sardaukar 10y ago
  that's fascinating, though I'm not into sweet things enough to invest in the required equipment. I do agree with your overall point that chef's skills probably aren't specialized or difficult enough to command high wages in the long term.
- Raphmedia 10y ago
  It's one thing to make a pint of icecream at home, at your own pace. It's another to product enough (and not too much) icecream in a restaurant's cuisine. If the restaurant is high-end, the icecream should have the correct ingredients to pair with the other food. Pastry making is often compared to an art... but then art doesn't pay much either.

dmamills 10y ago

This is hysterically ironic on a forum like hacker news.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
WillPostForFood 10y ago
The article directly makes the parallel case of programmers and code academies. I'd say the same thing about programmer wages and claims you need a 4 year degree to put up a wordpress blog or whatever you think the programming equivalent of making ice cream is. Bottom line is if your wages are low, then your skills aren't as valuable as you think, whether you are a coder, or creamer.
- code_sardaukar 10y ago
  I think the endgame for programmers is very different to pastry chefs. Yes there are bootcamps, but part of their success is being selective in who they accept. No one has yet shown how to take an average person and get them a well paying programming job. Egalitarian dogma states that programmers don't have special abilities or interests but the market has been very stubborn so far.
Chris2048 10y ago
Why? Are developers overvaluing their skills?

rifung 10y ago

Why do you consider this an overvaluation? I imagine it takes a lot of practice to reach a high level of cooking. Sure, you can probably make an ice cream decently enough in after a few tries, but I imagine to be a good chef you should know how to make something new taste the way you want on the first try or couple of tries. Not only that but as a chef you presumably have to make it perfectly every time. I remember reading Jacques Pepin saying how he doesn't get bored of cooking because it's never the same: even if you cook the salmon 50 times, no two pieces of salmon are identical but a good chef should be able to make them all taste very nearly the same. On the other hand, I imagine that chefs have a much more nuanced palate than the regular person so I wonder at what point are most normal people unable to distinguish the differences. If you have reached a high level of cooking then I apologize and will admit I'm wrong, but it seems wrong of us, who haven't been through the same process, to say it's easy. I'm sure people who aren't programmers might wonder why software always has bugs and security vulnerabilities and think it shouldn't be too hard to write programs without them.