http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/14/rene-redzepi-chefs-better-foodMy father, a Muslim immigrant in Denmark, has had all the typical working-class jobs. He's lugged heavy crates as a greengrocer, driven people around Copenhagen at night in taxis. He has cleaned stacks of dirty glasses and espresso cups. In fact, it was while washing plates that he met my mother, a cashier at the same cafeteria.
When I turned 15, I left school having failed to make the minimum grade. With little direction I enlisted at the local culinary school. Here the academic demands were less rigorous. For instance, one of the more challenging questions on my final exam was to name "soft-boiled egg" in several languages (I came up with three and passed). Kitchen work at that time was considered menial labour; perhaps if a cook became skilled enough he might be called a craftsman, but he would never be valued for his contribution in the same way as a lawyer or an architect is. We were merely the ones that fed them.
Nineteen years later, I'm still a chef, but the public perspective of our profession is very different. No longer are we thought of as simple labourers chopping carrots in sweaty, dangerous kitchens, never seeing the light of day. The traditional distinctions that define and dictate what we do and our place in society have blurred.
Who would have thought, even a couple of years ago, that last November more than 1,000 people would turn up to the Sydney Opera House to listen to a chef from Denmark – me – speak about chickweed and ground elder? Or that that same boy who flunked out of school – who was labelled ineligible for university – would be asked to lecture at Yale this October?
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