Beyond Recipes: A Chef’s Journey from Curiosity to Craft

In a world where food is often reduced to quick recipes and fleeting trends, this interview explores the deeper, more enduring essence of cooking through the eyes of a world-renowned chef — Jason Black, whose journey spans continents, cultures, and decades.

From early uncertainty and competing expectations to discovering a true calling in the kitchen, his story is one of persistence, exploration, and passion.
With over 35 years of experience working in renowned culinary hubs around the globe, he brings a perspective shaped not only by technique, but by history, tradition, and sensory connection. Now, through The Kitchen Academy and his work with a Bulgarian audience, he shares his belief that cooking is far more than a profession — it is a universal language that connects people across cultures and generations.
This conversation dives into the lessons he’s learned, the philosophy that drives him, and why understanding the “why” behind cooking matters far more than simply following a recipe.

What first sparked your passion for cooking, and can you remember the exact moment you realised this was your calling?

I did some outside catering for an event at my mom’s work in high school. I had always wanted to fly, but never made selection into the air force as a pilot. My father had a successful business, which he wanted me to take over. My mother wanted me to study to be an accountant. I tried to please both, BUT eventually decided to become a cook. I started cooking before we had good cook books, TV shows and catering was perceived as a career for the ‘not so smart’ back then.

How did your journey evolve from a home cook (or beginner) to creating your own online platform, The Kitchen Academy?

After completing my national service in the air force, I started studying and working, but enjoyed neither. My father got me a trial at a 5 star hotel to see if I liked cooking. I did, and then went to work as an apprentice, before going to Australia, then Hong Kong. I’ve been lucky to have studied in Paris, and worked in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa and a few other places.

What makes cooking more than just a profession for you – how would you describe your emotional connection to food?

Having always had an active imagination, and a mind that is hard to slow down, cooking, and especially baking bread, allows me to focus. It is a very tactile pursuit. You use your hands and feel what you are working with, you smell how it cooks during the process, you hear ingredients change in the pan as they sweat and the sugar starts to caramelize. Also, in professional kitchens there is an unspoken language of co-operation. You get to use senses, intuition, and operate often in a way that is different from an office environment.

Can you share a dish that best represents who you are as a chef, and why it’s so meaningful to you?

Having been a chef for 35 years, I have had so many favourites. I don’t think there is one dish, one style, one type of cuisine that defines me. I have been fortunate to have worked and travelled in many countries, and all have had an influence. I am attracted to the cooking techniques of old – braising, slow fermentation, preservation – not because they are ‘trendy’, but because humans used these techniques to flavour, tenderise, and survive!

What inspired you to launch an English-language section for Modern Life, aimed at a Bulgarian audience, and how do you think food connects people across different cultures, especially between your background and Bulgaria?

Cooking is a universal language, and hobby. As humans, once we have gone beyond the need for food to survive, we begin to appreciate the other elements around it – community / technique / satisfaction through challenge. We carry the traditions of our culture through language. We also carry it through food, and the ceremonies that exist around it. While these may be country-specific, at a deeper level, there is a connection.

What are the biggest mistakes you see beginners make in the kitchen, and how can they overcome them?

Following recipes without understanding the underlying method. Recipes can be like a map, but unless you learn to use a compass and explore, you are bound to use the same route. Understanding the method behind a recipe gives you much more freedom.

In your opinion, what separates a good cook from a truly great one?

Nothing. Every cook, no matter in a fine dining restaurant, or at a dining room table in a small apartment, gets the same pleasure when someone says “thank you, that was delicious”. In our modern world, access to information is a great achievement, and the great chefs are leaders of great teams. Some of the greatest chefs of our generations have closed their business because they simply fail financially. Some fabulously profitable ones worry less about the accolades and delivering consistency.

How do you stay creative and continue to innovate in your cooking and teaching?

By eating a lot, and being playful. There really IS nothing new. Fads come along, but it is the regional specialities that define a culture, a community, and a cuisine that will always be the bedrock of cuisine. We will ALWAYS know what Coq au Vin is… Can we say the same for an Iced Rainbow Frappuccino?

If you could teach just one lesson to aspiring cooks around the world, what would it be and why?

Learn what is happening in the pot and the pan. Understand temperature and time, and why products behave under the conditions you set. No matter HOW creative you are, some dishes need to be cooked long and slow, some taste better the next day. Humans have been eating properly for a long, long, long time. They have adapted, preserved, cured, simmered, steamed and fermented a variety of items to make foods edible, and safe. Understanding the history of WHY helps to appreciate the HOW. Often recipes don’t do that!