As the subject title suggests, I have a question to pose. From Lands End to John O Groats there must be thousands of BIR?s; most producing the taste and smell we are all striving for.

If the ?secret? is secret, where then do all these chefs get their recipes from, they surly are not all related and have the secrets passed down the family. The competition in Birmingham, for example, must be tremendous, no one giving any information to anyone else yet the taste and smell are all very similar.

I have not posted for a while because I am working my way through the index of base recipes; I have made 10 of them to date, all giving quite different but pleasing results, so far, Darths has been the closest to the smell I am familiar with.

So back to my question, where do the chefs go to learn their trade? Any chef who has the recipe for base sauces would not hand it over to another who could potentially open a restaurant in competition next door.

Any thoughts anyone? 

Onion

Well, I know some of the story
There was a chef (thirty years experience) I knew who worked at the Sizzler
He didn't renew his lease so he opened a place 15 miles away at Newstead
Another local place, called Bombay, changed hands and that chef (self taught)ended up working with the first chef at Newstead
Newstead had only a short run and that closed
The second chef then worked at a place called Paramount
The first chef stopped cooking altogether
Meanwhile a chef (called Mamood),who worked on Mansfield Road, decided to run his own business and took over The Bombay Bicycle centre (and it's the best around)
Another place on Mansfield called the Himalayan Tandoori closed due to ill health
I think the healthy brother started doing a taxi service
A new place opened on Haydn Road called Chilli Nights
The chef there is young (twenty five) he is self taught as well
His cooking is BIR with a homestyle slant
Very good too

In short I don't think anyone really trains anyone
But like any job, if you see someone doing something, you will imitate it
Pick up good ideas
I asked another chef about how he learnt the curry gravy
He replied that one night the main chef quit (he refused to show anyone his secrets)
So the gravy was made up purely by guesswork
That was his starting point

I have often mentioned various chefs to other chefs, and vary rarely does anyone know anyone.
There is definitely no coordinated training round here
A lot of the younger staff now speak English perfectly
Start chatting
It's a world of it's own
More than recipes happen
You might be surprised

Similar to what Haldi is saying I know a chef I chat to learnt what he knows from being asked to cover for the head chef at the first place he worked in. He is now the main chef at another one of my locals, everything is passed down from just working in the business.