WOULD YOU URGE YOUR CHILD TO BE A CHOCOLATIER OR A DOCTOR?

Being a very practical person, wise to the ways of world, I would responsibly advice my children to be doctors. Because, from evidence evaluated today, it does not matter much whether you are a good doctor or a hopeless one. You will still make a lot of money and have a comfortable living.Unfortunately the same cannot be said of your patients. But if you are a mediocre chocolatier, you are surely headed down the rocky road of life.

The good thing is everybody has an inborn talent waiting to blossom out to be great chefs or chocolatiers.Everyone loves to eat. Of course the majority get distracted and go into absurdities like nuclear physics. However if you are like my son, who keeps wondering and experimenting on how to make a chocolate cookie better, or his noodles more exciting or what happens if you add balsamic vinegar to rice, then it is very likely that he may see greatness in the culinary arts.And at far less cost me me than a degree in medicine or law.

Lately I have been covertly(because my wife sees him one day as a powerfully rich unscrupulous lawyer)encouraging him to pursue his curiosity in the culinary arts. I told him about Ferran Adria who began his culinary life as a dishwasher. Then a army cook. Then joined El Bulli and 18 months(I keep stressing 18 months, because my son is terribly impatient)later became head chef of El Bulli.

I told his about Heston Blumenthol and how this great man who after high school spend a week with Raymond Blanc and a few months with Marco Pierre White then lept into fame. I told my son that Blumenthal's mentor, Marco Pierre White started as a dishwasher at a the Hotel Saint George(which nobody has heard of) and then went on to establishments like the Box Tree, Le Gauroche and La Tante Clair. My son was very impressed as I rolled out these names in my best French.

The point I was trying to make is that what he needed was passion not a fearfully expensive education which undoubtedly I would have to slog for till my dying days to pay.

To be fair and balanced, as a parent must be, I told him also of Ramon Morato, probably the most famous choclatier of all. He did go to formal confectionery and chocolate schools like the National High School of Pastry, Confectionary, Ice Cream and Chocolate at Yssingeaux. I emphasised of course that Morato had won a scholarship to go there.

To bring him back from France I quoted Ferran Adria who said, "Ideal customers dont come to El Bulli to eat, they come for the experience." And that the secret of great cooking was the contrasts in flavour, temperature and texture." The study of which, I pointed out, was ever present in the street foods of Jakarta, Indonesia. Hundreds of such excellent establishments exist minutes away from our home.

I told my son about Heston Blumenthol's philosophy on food which was to discover and exploit the diner's perception of his expectations of types of food and surprise him or her out of their minds. That too can be studied intensively in Indonesia. After all, I reminded him that Indonesia was home to all ingredients and spices and herbs know to man. As well as all the textures and flavours and indeed temperatures. You are, I told my son, in the finest cooking environment in the world. It was these 17000 island archipelago that the world was supplied with spices for a thousand years or more. Here his vision could be as broad as he makes it. Never as blinkered as French cuisine which is over-rated, over-priced and mostly arrogance.Chic yes, but predictable.

Coming back to my son becoming a chocolatier I told him of the passion of Charles Barry who in 1842 travelled to Africa to look for beans. Of course he should have come to Indonesia but it no good moan about it now. Besides Africa was closer. But my son can find great cocoa beans throughout our islands. Cocoa plantations existed on Sulewesi, Java, Sumetra, Papua, Maluku,West Timor, Bali, Kalimantan, Nias and Flores. His backyard was rich with exciting beans.Bernard Callebaut actually treated his father's brewery turned chocolate factory as his playroom. And eventually learned all the secrets of making chocolate. A bit of apprenticeship with chocolaterie Menunier and off to Calgary, Canada where, much against all advice from snooty Europeans, he started his own thriving chocolate factories.

In Indonesia my son would find in most communities at least one home industry engaged in baking or chocolate or both.And because these homes dream of sending off their children to universities the motivation to successfully compete and innovate, throbs relentlessly. The country, without exaggeration is an backyard university campus in the craft of chocolate.The best best thing about it was the chocolate created was unique to the country and relevant to consumer needs. This country being the third largest consumer market in Asia, its an opportunity and challenge not to be sneezed.

Summing up, I told my son, he may not make as much money as a lousy doctor or an unscrupulous lawyer, nor afford a divorce(which he thinks is mandatory on a route to fame), but he may well be able to afford the Honda he seamed to take a fancy for. Unless of course he can reach the heights of Ramon Morato or Ferran Adria. Here, to be fair, I told him that El Bulli actually operates at a loss. They make their money on their books.