But for wannabe professional chefs, the landscape in Ireland has also changed dramatically in recent years.

This is not only because of the mushrooming of quality hotels and restaurants around the country offering better standards of employment, but also because of a change in the way in which catering education is offered in this country.

"When I first started, the usual approach into a career in cooking was that of the kitchen apprentice, " said M irt'n Mac Con Iomaire, a lecturer in Culinary Arts at DIT Cathal Brugha Street.

"There was no real formal training. And while you can still go down the apprenticeship route, with perhaps college for one day per week, the usual route into the career is a full-time college place, either on a Failte Ireland course (formerly run by CERT), or on the degree course at DIT."

Food training has been evolving over the years at DIT. For example, in 1986 the college introduced the Certificate in Culinary Arts, which was known as "catering for health", creating what were known informally as "diet cooks". These were specially trained professionals who would typically find work in hospitals or contract catering, and the idea was to introduce the concept of nutrition into menus which would be regularly eaten, ensuring a good balance in people's lives.

But the 1999/2000 season saw a big change for Cathal Brugha Street, because it was this year that saw the introduction of the BA in Culinary Arts. This four year degree is unique ( not only to Ireland but to the rest of the world) in its approach to creating future chefs, in that, while other Culinary Arts degrees match two years of cooking with a business or a science programme, DIT offers a far more holistic approach. Thus, cookery forms an important part of the programme over all four years.

"We use cooking as a mechanism for students to learn science, business, sociology, etc, " said Mac Con Iomaire.

"And through our four main areas of butchery, pastry, hot kitchen and cold kitchen, we introduce people to subjects such as management, accountancy, leadership and communications. Science also forms an integral part of the degree programme, including occupational health and safety, food health and safety and culinary science and product development.

But we also teach people about the art and gastronomy of food- which is concerned with why and how people eat, addressing issues such as why people snack with acquaintances and have dinner with friends."

Indeed, if Gordon Ramsay's foul-mouthed tirades have taught us anything, it is that a chef has to be much more than an elevated cook . . . he or she has to be a business manager, a marketer, a team leader, a ball-breaker, an artist, a communicator and a nutritionist, to name but a few aspects of the job.

This is why it is of such importance to have a comprehensive degree course to create future professionals . . . although, in keeping with the Institutes of Technology's ethos, there is also a ladder system, whereby people can enter a certificate course and work their way up . . . after all, chefing is not necessarily dependent on good academic results. There is also a sort of CPD (continuing professional development) programme for existing chefs, which borrows elements from the degree course where required.

But perhaps the most impressive aspects of the Cathal Brugha Street course are the links which the programme has forged with the leading restaurants of the world. Work placement is an important part of the programme, but we are not only talking about local placements . . . DIT has managed to place people in such establishments as Tetsuya's in Sydney and frequently in the Fat Duck in the UK . . .

numbers five and two respectively in Restaurant Magazine's 2007 poll.

Indeed, Mac Con Iomaire has recently returned from a meeting with El Bulli in Catalonia, which, for the past two years, has elbowed the Fat Duck off the number one spot. These top two restaurants are prime examples of "molecular gastronomy", and the fact that DIT can place students with these exponents of scientific cooking speaks volumes for the quality of the course itself.