Hello friends,
With all this talk on food porn, I thought I’d share with you my thoughts on a piece of non-fiction that is anything but food porn. First published in 2000, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly is a must-read for anyone who considers him/herself a lover of food or wants to get into the food industry. What an eye opener.
*my edition of Kitchen Confidential, lended to me by a friend who didn’t mind me sticking post it notes all over it
True, this is from 2000, and the “celebritization” of chefs and cooking has come quite a long way in the past dozen years. However, even Anthony was aware of it back then and calls it a “remarkable and admittedly annoying phenomenon” in the preface of the book. There are quite a few times when he pokes fun at one of the first celebrity chefs, Emeril Lagasse, for his catchword “Bam!” and he proceeds to break the illusion many of us hold on what goes on in these restaurant kitchens.
In these kitchens, there are no cameras, no chefs’ working in silent concentration, only yelling “behind!” when sliding past a fellow cook at the oven. This is not a streamlined process. Within these pages are accounts from multiple restaurants that Anthony worked at as he made his way up the food chain, and each of these kitchens was an island unto itself full of profanity and moral degradation. At one he witnesses a newlywed bride having sex with one of the head chefs in the parking lot as the rest of her party was eating dinner; at others the “level of discourse” includes throwing around the phrases “suck my dick” which, in kitchen speak, merely means “hang on a second”.
Aside from scaring the pants off you in his descriptions of fellow chefs, his thoughts on “ordering fish on Monday” or partaking in “Sunday brunch” leave much to be desired from restaurant-goers. True, I did know the bit about the fish on Monday, but it was surprising to read “I’m not even going to talk about blood. Let’s just say we cut ourselves a lot in the kitchen and leave it at that”.
Wow. Skin was slightly crawling at that point.
However, in the midst of this naturalist depiction of restaurant kitchens as anything but glamorous, there are also scores of Anthony Bourdain’s personal stories that leave the reader smiling or even laughing out loud. I personally loved the “what do you know about meat?” story, but I won’t ruin that for future readers.
Then there is the chapter on “Owner’s Syndrome”. Please pick up this book, borrow it from a friend, anything, if you have any notions of beginning a restaurant. It’s tough to swallow, especially if you are one of those “most dangerous” types of potential owners that Anthony calls “poor fools” who are “a menace” to everyone in the industry, those who get into it for love. I was one of those before reading this novel. It’s a slap in the face, but perhaps one that needs to be given to those of us who have come to think of the food industry in the way it’s presented on television.
Also keep in mind Anthony’s tone about food. Yes, this book is full of depraved, even dangerous moments, but Mr. Bourdain does not joke about the power of food. Food can “inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight, and impress”.
photo by lwpkommunikacio
Overall, I would be silly to not give this a 10 out of 10 on my scale of “good reads”. When you’ve got it, you’ve got it, and this book has everything to ensure it’s place on the must-reads of food literature. Dark, depraved, but also amusing and even inspiring. We see Anthony Bourdain now, as the host of his show “No Reservations” and as a skilled celebrity chef, but at the heart of this book we see his life struggles and it reminds us that no one gets anywhere without hard work and determination.
~Jess
