I’m not sure whether Prue Leith, at 75 one of the stalwarts of the British culinary scene, was being deliberately provocative or merely showing she was out of touch when she told me she thought female chefs struggled to get Michelin stars because they were prevented from putting in the hours necessary to make it by their husbands.

Partners of women chefs, apparently, resent being relied upon to care for children at night. Leith called on men to support their wives because the need for top female chefs is pressing because of a skills and staff shortage.

She reckons women can’t be top chefs unless they’re unmarried and don’t have children. What would Clare Smyth, Angela Hartnett and Helene Darozze; and in Scotland, Jacqueline O’Donnell of the Sisters restaurant in Glasgow, Maria Paszkowska of Monachyle Mhor Hotel, in Balquidder, or Suzanne O’Connor of Scottish Cafe and Restaurant in Edinburgh would make of that, I wonder?

Leith, restaurateur, author, MasterChef judge, founder of the Leith School of Food and Wine and author of several cook books, as well as an autobiography and two novels, said thought men needed to change their attitude and support women in the industry.

Whatever you think of her comments, it’s true that the industry is facing serious staff shortage problems, either because youngsters aren’t going into the industry in the first place, those who do apply are unsuitable, or because they’re moving on in under a year instead of the staying the pace in the traditional way.

Leith’s view echoes that expressed recently by Michel Roux Jr. He told his brigade of disabled youngsters in his touching Channel 4 programme Kitchen Impossible that being successful took extremely hard work and that he has not achieved two Michelin stars and his high profile reputation without years of hard graft.

Roux has always taken a proactive role in mentoring younger chefs and front of house staff in his Mayfair restaurant Le Gavroche, but here he goes one step further in encouraging the youngsters, who live with Tourette’s, autism, Asperger’s or Down’s, to find a way of displaying their culinary and people skills so that future employers could see past their disabilities. I couldn’t help noticing that almost half the youngsters are girls; Roux has always supported women and has long criticised Britain’s professional kitchens for not having enough female chefs. Last month he said there are still some places that are living in the “Dark Ages" and think the kitchen is a male bastion.

Roux’s daughter is a pastry chef, and his kitchen staff are 50:50 women to men, with Rachel Humphrey his head chef. When I interviewed him there a couple of years back, he had at least three young Scottish female apprentices, plus a trainee female waiter.

Jacqueline O'Donnell, a married mother who runs Sisters restaurant in Glasgow (as well as appearing on the Great British Menu) and whose kitchen is almost 100% female, says women are good chefs because they multi-task instinctively and are less likely to get into a flap when the going gets tough. Long shifts are divided up into manageable sections where everybody mucks in to finish a task, so that breaks can be factored in when necessary if the chefs have children.

She even reckons professional kitchens, some of which she describes as "cocky, arrogant and masculine", would become nicer places to work in if the men could only embrace their feminine sides.

That fact remains that being a professional chef means working long shifts, almost every night, and at weekends. A shift can be 14 hours long, and you’re on your feet in the heat for the duration. That’s tough going physically for anyone, not just women.

It’s becoming more widely acknowledged that unsociable hours are the biggest hurdle for young people – boys as well as girls – joining the industry. Chefs all over Scotland tell me that when they visit catering colleges to give talks to hospitality students, or to offer them stages in their own kitchens, that’s what they’re hearing.

Is the answer to introduce a four-day week rota for staff, or to restrict restaurant openings to Wednesday through to Saturday only? That’s what the two Michelin star Nottingham-based chef Sat Bains has decided to do as of this week, following extensive research with fellow industry leaders. It's initially for a trial period but with the intention of making it a permanent arrangement. Staff will still have to work at weekends, but they’ll get three consecutive days off during the week to have a proper break, gaining 48 days per year more leisure time, and will see no decrease in their salaries or benefits. Bains will take the financial hit. It’s a bold, high-risk move, but one that evidently has the potential to pay dividends in terms of a happier workforce; it’s said that a happy kitchen brigade produces happier food.

I think it’s a great incentive and one that, if followed up by others, could rejuvenate the industry – even if it means our choice of eating out is marginally restricted.

And who knows? They might even make babies along the way.