'A good general wins a lot of wars because his soldiers are behind him completely. It's the same spirit inside the kitchen,' says chef Patrick Goubier of Chez Patrick.
Comparisons between battlefields and professional kitchens abound; chefs have Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern French cuisine, to thank for that. Escoffier modelled his brigade de cuisine system for organising kitchen labour on the French military - with a chain of command that has ranks and titles for each member. Introduced almost 100 years ago, it remains the base model for most high-end restaurants in Europe and the United States as well as western restaurants around the world.
Between the chef and the commis - the most junior cook - there are more than 25 positions within the brigade, some indicating rank, others specialisation. Chef de Partie is the title for the head of a section, for example, those in charge of fish or meat dishes. A rotisseur manages the roasting, deep frying and broiling; his team can be further divided into grillardin (grill cook) and friturier (fry cook).
'Only hotels, or the most demanding two- or three-star Michelin kitchens, have the need and capacity to employ people for all these positions,' Goubier says. Most smaller kitchens keep the key positions and the model of respect for superiors.
The sous chef is the chef's right-hand man (or woman); when the chef is absent, what he says goes. Third in command is the saucier, so named for French cuisine's canon of refined sauces. To be a respected saucier, a cook would traditionally have come up through the ranks and worked at every station, from cold and hot appetisers, vegetables and seafood to meat - a process that could take up to 10 years in a reputable kitchen.
'Nowadays, nobody stays that long in one kitchen. So the brigade system is changing,' says Goubier. Aspiring cooks work for famous chefs, sometimes leaving a kitchen half-trained for greener pastures after only a few years. Also, the harshness of the traditional military model does not appeal to younger cooks.