Extremely random question that you can ignore! So as a cook, when you work somewhere does that place like, give you specific recipes to follow? Because I always figured that they'd want their food standardized, but also it made SUCH a difference when the cook at my favorite breakfast place left, but if they were following the same recipes shouldn't it have been the same?? Or is there just a massive level of skill difference that can happen there?
Most places have a certain level of standardization with regards to recipes and ingredients, yes, but also how you cook something, and for how long, and what else you may add can make a massive difference. Cooking something on the flat top vs. a grill vs. the oven vs. the fryer vs. a steamer can all massively change how something comes out, and yeah it's sometimes a skill thing too. Some people don't put oil down, or drench everything in it even when that's a crazy thing to do; some people don't season, or massively over-season; some people (especially older cooks) kind of go by vibes and don't, for instance, actually temp the fucking meats they're cooking; some people never even look at the fucking recipes and just vibe their way through everything based on previous training, making all of their food taste different than everyone elses'.
Adding to that, there's also the matter of who's doing the prep: depending on the place, some (a lot, really) line cooks are also part-time prep cooks and that'll have an effect as well. If your favorite cook all did all the prep work for the specials, or made sure everything was flipped and stocked on the line, or had a special recipe for sauces and marinades that wasn't written down, or was the person responsible for proper rotation, or always timed and temped their cooking properly, etc. etc., then them leaving likely had ripple effects and left holes in the system that nobody had thought to fill yet.
And on top of that, yeah, skill and experience make a big difference too. New cooks for instance often learn everything on the line and piecemeal across different jobs, which will affect their cooking each time they go somewhere new. My very first job was at a fucking Subway, but since it was all fresh ingredients and no actual cooking, the main thing I was taught to focus on was proper rotation (FIFO: First In, First Out), accurate labeling (contents, date made, use-by, initials), and keeping everything stocked, which is literally always the first thing that new bosses compliment because of how, uhhhhh, lax a lot of line cooks can be about all that; on the flip side, I've been a line cook for several years and just learned at this latest place to check the internal temp of steaks to determine how cooked they are (rare: 120ish, mid-rare: 130ish, medium: 140, mid-well: 150, well done: +155) simply because I never worked anywhere that did a lot of steak work.
So yeah it's sort of a grab bag in kitchens of where the disconnect may be lol, very much an art rather than a science, especially in kitchens that aren't terribly fussed about having everything exactly the same every time. Plus, not gonna lie, some "official" recipes are absolutely wack and everyone in the kitchen just tacitly agrees that We Are Not Doing That and does their own thing.
