Catering

Introduction

When I think about what I want to do after high school many things come to mind, like music, or photography, but the one thing that stuck in my mind was cooking. Now there are many fields in cooking or culinary arts, for example French cuisine, baking, hotel hospitality, but I chose catering. There are unlimited reasons why I chose catering, and so many fields in catering I could do. I could stick to what I know, or what I learned during my time in an institute, or anything else. There are many elements to catering, or any job for that matter, like earnings, description, advantages and disadvantages, etc.

Job Description and Duties

So you want to know about catering huh? Well do you even know what catering is? According to Thorndike Barnhart catering means to provide food and supplies. I say catering is putting your creative forces into making a dish that will hopefully make another person happy.

So what does a caterer do? That is a good question. The caterer is expected to do a great deal of tasks. A caterer generally is expected to set up, serve the food, and clean up. But if you want the detailed description of the job, a caterer has to a lot before and event, like book the event, price to food create the menu according to the event or client's needs.

Once you have done all of that you have to get ready for the event and you have to prepare the food and keep track of the nutrition of the dish. Now when if comes to the preparation of the food there are many different elements to it, like measuring the ingredients, making sure that you have the correct ingredients, and then making sure that the product I made perfectly to your or the customer's specifications. Once you have done everything for preparing the food, you have to set up the food for the occasion, and then serve it. Once the event is over you are required to clean up the mess that the guest made.

Place of Employment

Obviously as you can see there are many places that you would have to be if you were to be a caterer. A caterer is needed anywhere that there is food needed. Most catering events are inside but some catering events occur outside. Some caterers can be found at school events, business events, weddings, and social events. Primarily a caterer is mainly indoors.

Education and Training

To be a caterer you have to have a certain amount of knowledge, and training. Most caterers don't even wait until they graduate to train to be a caterer, so train in middle school or even high school. If you want to start training in middle school you can join the cooking club, or take cooking classes. Some high schools require that you take two or three years to graduate, but if you want to be a successful caterer, you would have to take four years of math and take cooking classes. The math courses that you take have to be specific not just any math courses, they have to be algebra1, geometry, algerbra2, and pre-calculus. Now if you have an extra year and you already passed all of these math classes it would be best that you take calculus to get the upper hand for when you graduate. Plus if you want to start a business you would take some classes in business that is offered in your high school.

So now that you have graduated and you have your high school diploma, what do you have to do now? Well some caterers start a business right after. If you want more training in the field of culinary arts you can go to one of the many culinary arts institutes that are out there. Some of them are the Le Cordon Blue Culinary Arts Institute of either Atlanta, or Las Vegas; Johnson and Wales; the Culinary Hospitality Institute of Chicago (CHIC); or many more

Other than the education that you have to have to be a caterer, you have to an internship to get experience and some institutes include internships for about three months. Caterers also have to have good customer service skills and should be able to interact with your client. According to the san Mateo Daily Journal article that was written on one of the many catering businesses it states "today whether you just serving cake, champagne, and punch, or just a four star dinner, food will play an important part... but food does not stand alone, the service must be excellent as well" and that my friend is what a excellent catering business needs to be successful.

Qualifications and Specifications

Other than the education that you have to have to be a caterer you have to other skills to succeed. For example you need to be artistic. Why, because if you want to have a large number of clients you should have a gimmick. Some businesses carve animals or different objects out of the dishes that they created and because of that they have a large number of clients. It is best that you always stay clean, tidy, and you obey health codes in order to stay open. It is best that you have a great deal of physical strength because you carry the food that you make up flights of stairs or even around the kitchen. Depending on the amount of food, and the weight of the dish you can be carrying twenty to thirty pounds of food at a time. And most of the time you don't even carry a lot of food. Sometimes you carry a lot of supplies, like pots and depending on if you want to prepare the food at the event you have to carry the ingredients.

Most chefs have to wear a uniform that consists of white pants, a double breast jacket, a hat and a neckerchief. To be a good boss you have to have great leadership and listening skills. It is best that you have a keen sense of smell and taste because you have to taste the dish and give it the seal of approval before you serve it.

Earnings and Benefits

Now I know what are you thinking what would be my salary if I were to be a caterer? Well that is a good question, depending on where in the world you work, starting salaries are minimum wage or $25,000 a year. Other than location years of experience also effects how much you get paid. So lets say that you have all the education and training needed plus five years of experience you are bound to get around $25,000 to $35,000 a year, doesn't that sound good? According to monster.com one job offers $37K to $75K a year plus commission and a full benefits package, or according to hotjobs.com a job could offer $45K to $55K a year as a salary. Well you do have to realize that this