Chefs and bakers

The everyday math

Kitchens run on quantities and costs. O*NET rates "Estimate amounts and costs of required supplies, such as food and ingredients" at 82 out of 100 for importance for chefs and head cooks, and "Check the quantity and quality of received products" at 83.¹ For restaurant cooks it lists "Weigh, measure, and mix ingredients according to recipes or personal judgment" (87) and "Plan and price menu items" (62).² For bakers, "Adapt the quantity of ingredients to match the amount of items to be baked" (86) is marked as a core task, which is O*NET's label for a task that matters to the job, not a count of how often it happens.³ The UK National Careers Service lists controlling stock and inspecting deliveries among a chef's tasks.⁴

Calculator rule: there is no official kitchen math test, so there is no rule to check. In England, English and math are a mandatory part of an apprenticeship for apprentices who start aged 16 to 18 without a suitable equivalent qualification, and an optional part for those aged 19 and over, funded if their employer agrees.⁵

The skills behind it, built around science

Scaling, portioning and costing are mostly multiplying, dividing and quick checks: does 750 g of flour sound right for ten people? Multiply & Divide practises those facts, and Mental Math Master reads each sum aloud, so you hold the numbers in your head, as you do when an order is called across a busy pass. In a review of 17 small studies, fact fluency programmes that used drill and practice with modelling gave the largest effects.⁶ No kitchen study was found, so that finding is about number facts in general.

• Classic workouts
• Mental Math Master

Honest limits