leep89•26d ago

Unpopular take: mise en place is slowing down new cooks

I saw a stat that said 40% of line cook errors come from over-prepping during service, not under. Read it on a culinary school study from 2023. Am I the only one who thinks we push mise too hard for beginners?

2 comments

2 Comments

finley_wells6626d ago

I take issue with the bit about framing mise as "prep for what's coming next, not what's on the menu." That sounds good on paper but falls apart when a new cook gets slammed during a rush. Beginners need a solid, repeatable system to fall back on. Telling them to wing it based on what they think is coming next is asking for trouble. The study about over-prepping might be true, but I bet those same cooks would make even more mistakes if they skipped proper prep. A little extra mise is a safety net, not a crutch. You cannot teach judgment to a rookie on day one.

kaip1126d ago

The real issue isn't mise en place itself but the way we teach it to green cooks. They treat it like a checklist instead of a living system, so they overcompensate by prepping way more than they'll need. If we framed mise as "prep for what's coming next, not what's on the menu" it might stick better.