F&B spells a life of drudgery, passion and obsession

The Moselles were up at 5am on Monday, making sure one of our teens was awake in time to catch the first ferry to Macau. She was off on a different kind of gambling trip - taking exams for a hospitality school, risking her career options on a maths and English test and a group interview.

The early start was a good indication of what life in the food and beverage industry is likely to offer her: long hours sustainable only through a deep commitment and that dreaded word 'passion'. It's become a cliche that you can work successfully in the food business only if you are passionate, but it has some force because it's true. Fingers crossed, my child is likely to be studying more of the business side of the industry than the practical, hands-on side, but that doesn't mean her early career steps won't involve drudgery.

I met the manager of a four-star hotel once, a university graduate, whose first job in a hotel had been making beds. Why? When she first stepped onto the career ladder, the fact that she was a woman was deemed more important than her academic qualifications and, in those unreconstructed days, women properly belonged in housekeeping.

What happens to people who work in the food industry who don't have that passion is that they become the poor chefs who make rubbish food or the waiters who don't care that your pizza is cold or that your wine glass has been empty for 30 minutes.

Passion on the other hand can lead to borderline eccentricity. Thomas Keller, noted chef proprietor of the French Laundry and Per Se, started his career as a dishwasher and ended up as one of the world's most highly rated chefs through becoming obsessed with hollandaise sauce and endlessly experimenting to find the perfect recipe for it.

Passion can also manifest itself in volatility or downright violence. I'm hoping my child will never encounter some of those who belong to the angry brigade, chefs such as Tom Aikens, who famously branded an underling with a hot palette knife. Marco Pierre White once ripped the whites off a young kitchen hand, beat him up and threw him out of the kitchen for the terrible crime of boning a pig's trotter poorly.

I'm told there are such chefs working in Hong Kong, but they are restrained by the labour laws from actually carrying out their threats of violence.

Passion can take other turns, as well. An acquaintance recently told me of her experience dining in an almost empty restaurant. The chef developed such a passion that he tried to snatch a hug and a kiss from her. Twice.