Jack Egan is an Oberlin College fourth-year and a head cook for Keep Cottage’s dining co-op, which is part of the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association. Head-cooking is an unpaid position in which he has served since the fall of 2021. I got dinner with Jack and spoke with him in my living room to learn about his experiences cooking weekly for the 60+ people in his co-op.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Alexa Stevens:
You’re on the record.
Jack Egan:
Hello.
AS:
What’s your favorite meal that you’ve made for your co-op?
JE:
Ooh, that’s a good question. So just for background, all co-op meals have to have starch, protein, and a vegetable. So, for this particular meal, I made this really good naan bread with yogurt. We made a really nice fresh cucumber salad. And then we made these really good spiced, toasted chickpeas and a yogurt sauce that was very garlicy and lemony. And so the idea was, you’d have a wrap. You’d have the base of the bread and then the chickpeas and the cucumbers and the sauce on top, and you’d eat it all as a wrap. It’s very tasty.
AS:
That’s awesome. What’s your favorite meal that you’ve made? Either like for yourself or for you and your family, or for you and your housemates?
JE:
Ooh, that’s a tough one to think of. Let me think. I really like making roast chickens. I have this fun method of doing them where you take the backbone out and marinate it with it. I have a couple of different fun marinades, so I’ve made like a couple of like cool dinners around that. There isn’t one particular meal that stands out, but my kitchen at home is the place where I’m able to be a lot more playful and experimental in what I’m doing than in the co-op kitchen.
AS:
And at home, do you cook for yourself or for you and your family or friends?
JE:
Sometimes it’s just for myself. Sometimes, like at Oberlin, I’ll cook for my roommates as well if they’re around. And when I’m at home, I’m usually cooking for me and my mom or me and my mom and other folks who are at our house.
AS:
Does who you’re cooking for change how you prepare it or the flavors that you use? I guess I’m just thinking about the roast chicken example. Like if you’re making a roast chicken, for just yourself or for others?
JE:
Yeah. That’s a good question actually because I really like really heavily spiced rubs and playing around with recipes from roast chicken variants from South America and Africa. But my mom tends to like the more kind of traditional European way of doing it with a lemon and herb compound butter. So like if I’m making it for her or her friends, that’s typically what I’m gonna make. But if it’s for one of my friends or it’s for me, then I might choose one of those slightly more adventurous recipes.
AS:
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I’m wondering why would you alter the flavors that you’re using — is it to impress people or to make them happy?
JE:
Yeah, I would say it’s to make them happy because at the end of the day, the reason why I like to cook so much is because it can just bring other people a lot of joy. And when I sit down at the table and I made a meal and someone’s like, “Oh, this is so delicious. Thank you for making this.” It is just such a great feeling. And that’s also what helped push me to be a co-op cook because it’s that feeling, but multiplied by like 60 people. And so, sometimes making something that will please everybody or that you know is gonna be a big hit, even if it’s not personally what you would absolutely love, even as long as you still enjoy it, I often find that that’s gonna be the best choice.
AS:
Yeah. That makes sense. And I guess how would you change your process of cooking or even the creation of the dish recipe if you are cooking for a small group of people, like your family and family friends or just friends versus the whole co-op?
JE:
Yeah, so that’s a great question. So co-op cooking, I would say, is defined by constraint. You have lots of different dietary restrictions that you need to prepare for and you can never truly guarantee what foods you’re gonna have. So you can make requests, but we just simply can’t afford every ingredient. So if I wanna try a recipe at home, we probably have Worcester sauce and sour cream and this particular spice and whatever the recipe requires — it’s either in our house or I can walk down to the supermarket in 10 minutes and buy it. Whereas with co-op cooking, there will be some times where I’m like, “Oh I wanna make baked beans.”
This was actually me last week, I wanted to make these baked beans. But then I was like, “Oh wait, we’re out of navy beans and there’s no more ketchup, so I gotta make something else.”
I learned the hard way that in co-op cooking that trying to make something that you really want to make when it’s not feasible instead of just shifting gears and choosing something else is often gonna lead to a poor outcome.
AS:
Yeah. Have you ever had a situation where you knew you had the ingredients and you knew what you were gonna make, but you didn’t make enough for people?
JE:
Absolutely. Yeah. That was a huge problem for me last semester when I would make that toasted chickpea dish because when I made it, a lot of the water starves off. So even though it’s the same amount of chickpeas, it makes it seem like a little bit less. So people tend to take more of it. And also, that particular meal, a lot of people, I don’t want to brag here, but people were talking like, “Oh, this Wednesday dinner is really good, you should come to Keep on Wednesday dinner.”
So there would always be a lot of guests. So every week I’d make more and more of it, but it would still run out by the end of the shift just because of how many guests were coming.
AS:
In like an ideal world, what would you make for a co-op if you had every ingredient and you knew it wasn’t gonna run out?
JE:
If I had every ingredient and I knew it wasn’t gonna run out and there were no costs and also no dietary restrictions preventing it, I would want to make like a whole bunch of carnitas tacos and lots of fresh tortillas. And I would make this wonderful carnitas that I do where I braise the pork shoulders in Coca-Cola and orange and lime juice and garlic and onion and some spices and just let it cook very slow. It’s really, really good. But, you know, that really wouldn’t be feasible first of all, because we don’t really have the money to purchase meat this semester anymore. And even if we did, we have some folks in the co-op who keep kosher pretty strictly, so that would be a huge no-no for them. And on top of that, the tortillas could be challenging because we have two people with really severe celiac disease. So anytime you want to do something with gluten, it’s complicated. And when you’re making a lot of small things that have gluten, it’s much easier for things to get contaminated.
AS:
And how might cooking for money, if at all, differ from how you would cook for a co-op where you’re just cooking for satisfaction and to make people happy?
JE:
Yeah, I really think it changes it a lot because having to make a profit and having the restaurant be your livelihood is really, really stressful. And we know that a shocking number of restaurants that open close within the first few years of them being open. It’s a tough, tough business. And I’ve actually thought a lot about it and people have asked me like, “Oh, do you ever consider going to culinary school?” or, “Do you want to be a chef?”
And I’ve thought about it, but it just seems like such a hard, harsh life. And also like on top of that, the cooking world is one that is filled with toxic masculinity and all of these really abusive people. And I just don’t really know if that’s something I want to get myself involved in.
AS:
Is there any advice that you’d give to someone who is just starting to cook for a big group of people, either in a restaurant or co-op scene?
JE:
Yeah. Well, I mean it’s a little bit hard for me to speak to a restaurant, but at least for co-op, there are a couple of things:
I would say that you’re gonna make mistakes and it’s important to not beat yourself up over them and acknowledge just how challenging what you’re doing is, and instead use those mistakes as a space for growth. I would also say that it’s really important to be considerate of the resources that you have in a cost setting. And if you’re at a restaurant, you can spend the whole morning prepping or whatnot. And you just don’t have that luxury in the co-op. And sometimes there will be times where you’re like, “Oh, I would love to do this super elaborate plan,” but if you do that and the meal’s late, people will be frustrated with you if you do that. Even if the meal’s on time but there’s a lot of dishes, people will be frustrated with you.
So it’s important to remember that the quality of the food is not the only thing that is important. It’s also important that everyone’s needs are accommodated, whether that be meals on time or not having to spend lots of time cleaning up.
And the other thing I would say is rely on people who are more established head cooks whose food you really like. I’m always really excited when people come up to me and they’re like, “Hey, how did you do that thing? It was so good.”
I appreciate that. I’d also say to watch YouTube videos about cooking and let that inspire you and get excited about stuff.
AS:
Yeah. And when you’re working as a head cook, do you have like people who are sous chefs? Or what do you call them?
JE:
I would just call them “people on the cook shift.”
AS:
People on the cook shift. Yeah. What do you think is the ideal culture you’d like to create amongst the people on the cook shift and how do you foster that culture?
JE:
This is actually something that is a really interesting question and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. So I think that the best cook shift is a collaborative one where people are chiming in ideas or you can delegate an advanced task to someone and they’re able to say like, “Yeah, I can put my own spin on this.”
Like, I’m like, “Hey, how would you feel about making the salad? This is what we have, you can make some mix of that and make a dressing.”
Like giving people a little bit of structure so that they still know what to do and they don’t have to do the labor of like planning the meal themselves if they don’t want to, but also giving them that opportunity to be creative and express themselves. Cuz that shouldn’t be a privilege that’s only available to me in the kitchen, I feel like. But it’s also challenging cause when you have newer people, you have to do more and help ground them in the techniques.
Another thing that’s really interesting is OSCA has these privilege and oppression seminars, these semesterly workshops that we do to sort of question our assumptions and see if there’s things that we can be doing better. And I recently did one on feminized labor in co-op spaces. And it was really interesting.
And one of the biggest themes that kind of came out of it was that there’s a pretty big problem with male head cooks being put on a pedestal more than other people. Taking other men under them on their shifts, which is like something that I’ve definitely been guilty of. And also people were just being critical of hierarchy in general in the kitchen. And I would push back on that last note a little bit. I do think that there has to be some sort of hierarchy in the kitchen. It just is really challenging for a whole group of people to try to make a whole bunch of decisions together in a space like the kitchen.
But it’s tough. I think that there’s way too much hierarchy in the professional cooking world. Like, there’s literally the brigade system that was based on the French military.
So, I think that there is still some hierarchy still necessary in the kitchen. You’re the one who’s ultimately responsible in making decisions, but still trying to encourage other people to be as creative as they want to be. Affording them that opportunity to create. I know that’s a very long-winded response.
AS:
No, that makes a lot of sense.
JE:
Yeah.
AS:
Yeah. I guess that’s it for my questions. Is there anything else you wanna add to how cooking for yourself or for you and a few friends might look really different than cooking for like a big group of people, like your co-op?
JE:
I would say, yeah, the big note there, I think I already mentioned it, it’s just that there’s a lot more constraints, but also it can feel a lot more rewarding when you make something that’s really, really high quality for so many people.
AS:
Yeah. All right. Awesome.
Alexa Stevens is an Oberlin College fourth-year student who loves food — especially breakfast food — and journalism — especially when it’s about food. Alexa’s non-food writing has been featured in Teen Vogue, Kidzworld, The Oberlin Review, The Easy Reader, and more.
