| Title | : | Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0060899220 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780060899226 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 312 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2000 |
New York Chef Tony Bourdain gives away secrets of the trade in his wickedly funny, inspiring memoir/expose. Kitchen Confidential reveals what Bourdain calls "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine."
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly Reviews
-
Excellent, vivid read about life in restaurant kitchens. Very atmospheric and I feel like I learned a lot about a very specific culture.
-
My first exposure to Anthony Bourdain, via his show No Reservations, left me with with the sense of a true asshole who sneered down his nose with aging punk-rock disdain at people and things he deemed beneath him, and, honestly, it seemed like most people and things were beneath him. For some reason, even though he crossed my Southern sensibilities and turned me off to him on that first exposure, I kept watching the show and realized that there is a lot more to him than that first impression suggested. No Reservations is now my favorite show and when I saw a copy of Kitchen Confidential for sale in the book store, I snapped it up and began reading it that night. I unfortunately wasn't able to keep his voice in my head (his delivery is a large part of the draw of his show for me) but the series of stories from his past that he lays out are captivating even when heard inside my skull as coming from the disembodied larynx of my standard reading voice.
Personally, I didn't find the shocking bits all that shocking. I've been backstage at good restaurants. I've heard it all before. Honestly, I'm not really all that hung up on food safety. Instead it was the parts dealing with his own erratic career path that kept me interested. Instead of leaving this book with the impression that Bourdain was an even bigger jerk than my first impression left me with (as someone suggested would happen), I left the last page of the book with an even more positive view of the guy. Sure, Bourdain is still cynical, obscene, and wears that brusque New York attitude like a badge of honor, but what stands out in his book is his glowing admiration for people who earned his respect for their willingness to work or pushing him down the right path as a chef (his almost loving references to Bigfoot and Pino are prime examples), his seeming compulsion to take in less than desirable underlings, and his complete willingness to point out when and where he screwed up. In this more recent update, he even points out that he learned he was wrong about Emeril Lagasse (as a chef and person, not as a TV Celebrity) and frequently comments that he isn't a top-tier chef because of his own mistakes. He even goes so far as to point out that the only reason he is able to hang out with and talk to the Michelin-starred chefs he always admired from afar is because of his notoriety as author and TV host.
This isn't some self-aggrandizing piece literary self-pleasuring. This is a very human piece of literature that reveals its author to be a man who may have grown up a couple of decades too late, but isn't too vain to admit that when he did it was in a large part because of those who took a chance on him and supported him when he was at his worse. -
I love food and I love hot sexy chefs with potty mouths.
I remember first discovering Anthony Bourdain on the Food Network many years ago. It was 3am and I was unable to sleep and here was this brooding, hot piece of ass chain smoking and touring Russia.
I never remembered his name but he haunted my dreams until I re-discovered him years later on the Travel Channel show, No Reservations.
In Kitchen Confidential, he is able to translate his sultry self onto paper.
But he is not just a piece of meat, my friends. He is a very good writer with a quit wit and he conveys a passion that touched my [fill in the blank] like no other.
Anthony Bourdain pretty much despises vegetarians, but I do not hold it against him. In fact, he makes me wish I was a heartless carnivore like him. And we would eat steak tartar together and take bathes together in a pool of goats blood.
I've said too much. I'm sorry. -
“People confuse me. Food doesn't.”
Kitchen Confidential is Bourdain's memoir that offers a deep look at the behind-the-scenes of restaurant kitchens. But two other things stood out to me in late Bourdains’s professional memoir. The first thing is his love of food, and the specific relationship he developed with food early in his childhood. The second thing is the frightening descriptions of his mental state, which I feel were largely overlooked as people were distracted with lushness and brilliant humor with which he described a world of restaurants. Having in mind Bourdain’s death from suicide in 2018, I can presume that he did not receive the adequate help that he desperately need, which is evident in his memoir written almost a decade before the tragic death.
Food is sex
Best chapters in the book for me were the first few chapters about Bourdain's relationship with food. Bourdain eloquently describes the origin of his passion for food. In Kitchen Confidential, Bourdain does not share a lot of his private life nor emotions, and he is kinda hiding, or revealing himself metaphorically, through his trajectory of the professional life in the kitchen. In a lot of ways, the kitchen has all of the space in his memoir, much more than he himself has, or his private life and relationships.
One thing can be presumed from that, of all relationships in life, the relationship he had with food was one of the most important, if not the most important relationship he had.
Even though he does not share a lot from his early childhood and primary family life, except for the notion they traveled frequently, his early life has a veil of melancholy, the veil that grows into the depression of adult age.
But as a lighthouse in the darkness of melancholy, with so much joy, passion, and pure happiness, Bourdain describes the time he realized he fell hopelessly in love with food - the first time he tried oysters in France as a child - the picture than lingered vividly in his memory.
“It tasted of seawater… of brine and flesh… and somehow… of the future…
Everything was different now. Everything.
I'd not only survived-I'd enjoyed.”
Bourdain did not only taste oysters - he experienced the ecstatic sensory joy, the deep value of the sensual experience that can give meaning to life. In rich flavors, he experienced happiness, creativity, inspiration, id, the life force itself. For Bourdain, food is sex as the sensory pleasure that comes from food is life-invigorating and gives existence a new purpose.
For Bourdain, this was transformative experience, the moment of apotheosis.
“I'd learned something. Viscerally, instinctively, spiritually-even in some small, precursive way, sexually-and there was no turning back. The genie was out of the bottle. My life as a cook, and as a chef, had begun.
Food had power.
It could inspire, astonish, shock, excite, delight and impress. It had the power to please me and others.”
Fining both meaning and drive for life in sensory experiences is by no means a new stance in the world of literature. The ecstatic moments of sensual joy can be found in
Proust's
Swann's Way, and in
Camus’s
The Stranger and
The Plague, where the characters experience the transference of absurdity of life in the sensory experience of the moment. But it is beautiful to find such an experience eloquently described in a memoir. Life replicates art and art replicates life.
“I had, as yet, no plans to cook professionally. But I frequently look back at my life, searching for that fork in the road, trying to figure out where, exactly, I went bad and became a thrill-seeking, pleasure-hungry sensualist, always looking to shock, amuse, terrify and manipulate, seeking to fill that empty spot in my soul with something new.”
Kitchen’s closed
The environment of the professional kitchen is intense, unpleasant, and oftentimes ruthless, which Bourdain demonstrates, again and again, through the narrative of memoir. The narrative is somewhat fragmented from chapter to chapter as they're not linked, and each individual chapter could be a standalone short story. I enjoyed greatly the first 150 pages of the book, but the last 150 pages I was struggling and dragging through, so be prepared for uneven writing. There were a few magnificent chapters and a lot less magnificent ones. I think the book would be much better if it had been a more continuous narrative. I feel that a few stories about the kitchen atmosphere of cursing, swearing, boiling, steaming are enough and at times the anecdotes described seemed to me as something you would tell to a group of people that you are trying to impress at the dinner table, not stories of adequate quality to put in a book. But through Bourdain's stories, one learns about the world of the kitchen, the predominantly world of macho men, and one definitely has to have a defensive strong facade to survive sometimes hazardous workplace environment staffed by the misfits.
“The basic character of the chef and cook hasn't wandered too far from the same recognizable personality types found in Orwell, Freleng or Bemelmans: Sensualist, often socially inept outside the kitchen, frequently dyslexic——people with appetites that go beyond food. The kitchen remains a refuge for the fugitive, the obsessed, the border jumper and the borderline, people who are only truly confident behind a stove or standing at the pass. They still and likely always will share a common ethos and patois.“
One of my feelings was constant, that by telling the macho stories Bourdain tried to hide the depth of his psychological suffering that became painfully evident in only a few, but terrifying passages.
Bourdain had prominent personality traits that were present from early adolescence. This is how he described himself;
“Let it suffice to say that by age eighteen I was a thoroughly undisciplined young man, blithely flunking or fading out of college (I couldn't be bothered to attend classes). I was angry at myself and at everyone else. Essentially, I treated the world as my ashtray. I spent most of my waking hours drinking, smoking pot, scheming, and doing my best to amuse, outrage, impress and penetrate anyone silly enough to find me entertaining. I was-to be frank-a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking. Rudderless and unhappy...”
But also, Bourdain was an incredibly charismatic, passionate, intelligent, well-read, eloquent, funny and honest human being, a sensualist that had plenty of life inside himself and who truly appreciated the pleasures of life. Under the strong facade he was deeply sentimental and empathetic, and also suffering from a raging depression he tried to self-medicate through large amounts of alcohol and all kind of drugs, including heroin, an addiction he later on recovered from. This passage shows the depths of his depression and is terrifying in the light of the future event.
“I was utterly depressed. I lay in bed all day, immobilized by guilt, fear, shame and regret, my ashtrays overflowing with butts, unpaid bills stacked everywhere, dirty clothes heaped in the corners. At night, I lay awake with heart palpitations, terrors, bouts of self-loathing so powerful that only the thought of diving through my sixth-floor window onto Riverside Drive gave me any comfort and allowed me to lull myself into a resigned sleep.”
Bourdain’s death is indeed a truly tragic one, and I was deeply sad and moved when I found out about it in 2018. From the time of writing of Kitchen Confidential, and before, to 2018, a year of his death, Bourdain continued to struggle with his mental health. He often brought out death, and in one of his last interviews, he said that he was going to “die in the saddle” — a sentiment that later proved chilling. His statements, as well some passages of the book proved how desperately he needed help. So it is somewhat puzzling that his loved ones expressed their disbelief after the event, with his mother saying he was “absolutely the last person in the world I would have ever dreamed would do something like this.”
“I'm still here. And I'm surprised by that. Every day.”
But oftentimes it is hard to look through the facade of the persona, of cheerful person that makes laugh everyone at the table with self-deprecating humor, the charismatic passionate man, the traveler that loves life, a chef rockstar, watched and loved by millions, with appeal stretched beyond the delicious food he cooked and ate. It is hard to see through all of that and even admit to oneself that there are people in the world quietly suffering as much Bourdain did, haunted by the darkness that they cannot seem to shake. In the last paragraph of the book he writes farewell;
“I’m good. Im free, as it were, of the complications of normal human entanglements, untormented by the beauty, complexity and challenge of a big magnificent and often painful world.”
Rest in peace, Anthony. -
"I don't know, you see, how a normal person acts. I don't know how to behave outside my kitchen. I don't know the rules. I'm aware of them, sure, but I don't care to observe them anymore because I haven't had to for so many years. Okay, I can put on a jacket, go out for dinner and a movie, and I can eat with a knife and fork without embarrassing my hosts. But can I really behave? I don't know."
I can't explain why it's taken me this long—nearly 20 years since it was published—to read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Having attended culinary school, I'm fairly obsessed with all things cooking-related, and consider myself to be a bit of a foodie. I was also an enormous Bourdain fan, religiously watching his television appearances and loving his take-no-prisoners philosophy when it came to adventurous eating (not something we shared, per se). Yet only now, in the few months since his shocking suicide, did I sit down to read his nearly 20-year-old look at his journey to executive chef, the knowledge he gained and the trouble he stepped into, time after time.
While certainly it's a little eerie (and a little sad) to read a memoir by someone who subsequently dies, that didn't spoil my enjoyment of this terrific, brash, funny, and at times introspective, book. Bourdain was a natural storyteller—not only did he use food to tell the stories he (and his bosses) wanted to create, but he also loved to talk about the ways the culinary world has changed through the years, how what restaurants serve (and what people eat) has changed, and how the role of the chef has changed with it.
Unlike many memoirs, Bourdain was never afraid to admit his flaws, his transgressions, his pet peeves, all of which served to make him more human and make his story more compelling. I loved everything about this book—from his days of being a cocky young man thinking he knew more (and could do more) than those who had been cooking for years, to his struggles to find the chef's job in a restaurant where he felt he belonged for more than a few weeks. He doesn't skimp on his addictions to cocaine, heroin, and whatever else he could find, and he was candid about how those problems nearly ruined his life and his career.
While there are moments of vulnerability, there are more moments of humor, mischief, and tons of information about the life of a chef (at least in 2000), and why some restaurants and chefs succeed while others fail. The infamous chapter, "From Our Kitchen to Your Table," in which he warns of some restaurant tricks to get rid of older food (although not all of the things he discusses are still true today), is terrific, if not a little bit disturbing. How can you not love a book in which the author says, "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living." (I guess if you're a vegetarian or vegan, you might take umbrage...)
I love Bourdain's writing style, so I'll definitely be picking up some of the other books he wrote. Even if you're not an aspiring chef or a foodie or even a home cook, you may enjoy this simply for the pleasure of hearing his words, which are so vivid you probably can imagine him reading them to you. It's a great book for cooking pros and novices alike.
Sure, reading Kitchen Confidential made me sad as I realized once again the magnitude of Bourdain's loss. But I'm also so happy he left such a rich legacy, in print, on television, and of course, in food.
See all of my reviews at
itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com, or check out my list of the best books I read in 2017 at
https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2017.html. -
Maybe 3.5 stars, sometimes 4. It has lots of interesting anecdotes, but it was somewhat repetitive at parts. While interesting for the non-culinary inclined, I think it would be better received by someone with a kitchen background or a person who has worked in food and beverage.
Some parts of this book talk about fantastic food and will leave you drooling. As a result, you will want to hop the next flight and travel the world visiting as many restaurants and trying as many types of food as you can.
Other parts will disgust you and leave you nauseous. You will never look a restaurant food the same way - and may not want to eat it at all unless you get a good look at the kitchen and the people preparing the food.
Bourdain doesn't pull any punches talking about the life of the kitchen staff fueled by drugs, alcohol, sexual innuendo, sarcasm, anger, impatience, and tyranny. Some how, as a result, schedules are met, food is delivered, and customers are satisfied. Food prep is a lifestyle that can occupy the serious chef 24/7. It is something I will not take for granted in the future.
R.I.P. Chef Bourdain -
What follows is my summary of this book. Blah, blah, blah, drugs blah, blah, fuck everyone, pork chop, fuck you all, mince, veal, drugs, blood, blah, blah, blah.
Maybe you can tell, I am less than impressed. I don't feel too bad writing this review, because Bourdain certainly never minces his words (culinary pun intended;-) I was expecting entertaining anecdotes, but frankly I was bored most of the time and started skimming two thirds of the way through. Bourdain is eloquent and even charming, if quite wry, in his TV shows and I guess I expected more of the same here. That being said, this is an older book and I think he matured quite a bit since then. -
“I’m asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it’s this: to be a part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one’s hands – using all one’s senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure (though oral sex has to be a close second).”
What a true delight it was to read my first Anthony Bourdain book! It was humorous, crude, exhilarating, mouth-watering, and highly informative. Oh, and I should mention, Bourdain may be a master at wielding a knife, but his skills with a pen aren’t too shabby either. I spent the past several days in his kitchens and dreaming about food and travel. (Well, I’m pretty much always fantasizing about these things, but let’s just say it became a bit of an incurable obsession of late!)
One thing is certain, I’m definitely on the right side of the kitchen – in the dining room! There’s no way I could cope working in this sort of an environment. The hours, the pace, the chaos, the pressure! But I admire anyone that can do it – and like Bourdain, I can see his point that “line cooks are the heroes.” I’m a firm believer now.
He takes us on a journey from his first realization that food was something more than just nourishment (when as an elementary student he tasted vichyssoise on the Queen Mary) through the various restaurants he inhabited for countless hours, to the heart of Asia where he learned that New York City was not the be-all and end-all of cuisine. The descriptions of certain food ‘encounters’ were probably some of my favorite morsels in the book. Bourdain’s experience with his first oyster was so vivid and tactile, sensual really, that I could well imagine it like it was my own. Such pleasure! It made me think of a certain scene from When Harry Met Sally. You know which one I mean.
“It tasted of seawater… of brine and flesh… and somehow… of the future… I had had an adventure, tasted forbidden fruit and everything that followed in my life – the food, the long and often stupid and self-destructive chase for the next thing, whether it was drugs or sex or some other new sensation – would all stem from this moment.”
I’ve never watched Anthony Bourdain’s shows. I didn’t really know much about him even five years ago – except that he was apparently some sort of deity in the food world. I’ve learned a bit more about him from reviews right on this site and became more and more interested in him, determined to glean more about his life. This book fit the bill perfectly.
If you’re not offended by honesty (and drugs and profanity and some ass-grabbing), and you’re not squeamish about what might go on before the wait staff brings those exquisite dishes to the table, then you may very well want to consider picking this up. The Afterword in my edition informs us that some things have changed in the restaurant world (namely the use of drugs and alcohol while on the job, the sexual antics during food service) since the writing of this book twenty years ago. I’m not going to lie – whether this is factual or not, I’m happy to erase some of those images from my mind when sitting down to enjoy a great meal! Nevertheless, I was greatly entertained and feel a lot more informed thanks to this.
It was a bit of serendipity to find out that Road Runner, the Bourdain documentary, was just released the other day! I’m pleased to say that the quaint little, locally owned theater nearby did not suffer a pandemic collapse. Its doors are once again open, and I plan to make a trip there very soon to watch this. I might even grab dinner before. But not at one of those chain establishments. Tony wouldn’t approve.
“Good food and good eating are about risk.”
“People confuse me. Food doesn’t.” -
“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
There is a certain thrill to being the first person to reach the top of a mountain, the first to eat at a soon-to-be famous restaurant, the first to discover an author, a band, a new food or experience. Well friend, the thrill of a late discovery (even when you are 15 years late to the party) is still pretty damn sweet. I might have seen Bourdain's books as I wandered through a bookstore. I might have seen him on CNN, the Travel Channel or the Food Network while searching for another show on another station. I didn't hardly notice him. He was like that girl you know in class but have never given much real attention to (only later to discover she is witty, wicked, and everything you want in a lover and fear in a daughter).
Over Christmas, while visiting and bonding my foodie brother in Arkansas, he introduces me to Parts Unknown on CNN. I am hooked. I love Bourdain. I'm addicted to the show. It mixes things that mix well: my love for travel, my love for food, my love for a damn good story with interesting characters. So, I figure, I might need to actually read his book. Yeah this one. The one that put him on the map. The one that turned him from an executive chef with personality to THE chef with personality.
The book is a quick read. It dances. It seems to operate with a certain mechanical, hyper-caffeinated efficiency. Whatever money it made Bourdain, he probably deserved even more. Right now, I've muted my desire to put it on the bookshelf next to my other just reads. I want my wife to read it first. Oh, I've got a friend who would love it too. My initial reaction to finishing this book is the same I get when I discover a fantastic new restaurant (
Republica Empanada in Mesa, AZ) -- I want to take friends and family to it. I become not just a disciple, but a crazy-eyed evangelist. -
R.I.P.
-
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, Anthony Bourdain
Released in 2000, the book is both Bourdain's professional memoir and a behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens.
The book is known for its treatment of the professional culinary industry, which he describes as an intense, unpleasant, and sometimes hazardous workplace staffed by who he describes as misfits.
Bourdain believes that the workplace is not for hobbyists and that anyone entering the industry without a masochistic, irrational dedication to cooking will be deterred.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش نسحه اصلی: روز نهم ماه اکتبر سال 2019 میلادی
عنوان: محرمانههای رستورانداری : پشت پردهی آشپزخانه ی رستورانها چه میگذرد؟؛ نویسنده: آنتونی بوردین؛ مترجم: عاطفه هاشمی؛ تهران انتشارات میلکان، 1397؛ در 336ص؛ شابک 9786226573016؛ موضوع: آشپزها - ایالات متحده - سرگذشتنامه - رستورانها - تاریخ - از نویسندگان ایالات متحده امریکا - سده 21م
این کتاب در سال 2000میلادی منتشر شده است که هم یادمانهای حرفه ای «بوردین» و هم نگاهی به پشت صحنه در آشپزخانه های رستورانهاست؛ این کتاب به دلیل برخورداری از صنعت آشپزخانه حرفه ای شناخته شده است، که وی آن را یک محل کار طاقتفرسا، ناخوشایند و گاه خطرناک توصیف میکند؛ «بوردین» باور دارد که محل کار برای سرگرمی نیست، و هرکسی که وارد این صنعت شود باید فداکاری کند
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 01/07/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی -
Abandoned, I think, most likely with prejudice.
The audio version is read by Bourdain, which may be the most problematic aspect for me. In the first couple of chapters, Bourdain discusses his introduction to the world of cooking, followed by his experiences at the Culinary Institute of America and his forays into the cooking world after. I'm stalled out on recommendations for the home chef chapter, which I'd kind of like to finish. Here's the trouble:
He sounds pretty much like a conceited, arrogant asshole, even as he's admitting he was a conceited, arrogant, twenty-year-old asshole. In this case, though certainly there is a feel of realism added by listening to him talk, it is far, far too much arrogance for me. I work with that type quite a bit, so I'm not really enjoying it during my free time.
The writing style is also somewhat over-done. It reminds me of when I was in high school and a group of us learned how to write humorous essays, that mostly consisted of wild exaggeration coupled with sarcasm. It's tiring.
The last part, and potentially most damning, is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of insight into food. Or rather, there was limited insight for the time period which it was about (remember truffle oil?), such as the infamous chapter with the advice 'never order fish on Mondays,' which he later amended (
https://www.businessinsider.com/antho...). From a foodie perspective, he's focused on proteins and presentation: it was surprising to me that he recommended a solid chef's knife for the home cook, but not necessarily a paring knife (essential, imo, for delicate fruit and veggie work). And why does he hate the garlic press so much? Sure, for the first twenty-some years of my cooking life, I flattened and chopped with my chef's knife, but I confess the press I started using was perfect for garlic in homemade salad dressing.
Overall, I think I would benefit more from his last book, the one that potentially offers more insight from an older, more worldly person, and from his later-career focus in food as a representation of culture. -
3.5 stars rounded up. A fascinating look into the professional kitchens of NYC. I'm immediately moving on to his other books!
I've never watched his show or heard much about him besides the suspicious rumors surrounding his death. It seems the world lost a talented, intriguing man. I hope to gleam what I can from his words. -
If you are like me and love food, watching Top Chef and Food Channel, think that cooking is art, an outlet for creativity, consider chefs featured on such shows (including Anthony Bourdain) as super-sophisticated artists, you are up for a surprise with this book.
Bourdain definitely crushes all preconceived notions we might have about the industry. You remember those foul-mouthed, unkempt, ever-fired-and-hired kitchen workers with shifty pasts you've come across at some points in your life? I thought I simply had a misfortune of working in crappy places, but, apparently, all cooks are exactly like that! There is no such thing as a sophisticated cook, according to Bourdain. In his book, cooks are a dysfunctional lot - drug-addicted, unable to hold a "normal" job, people from the fringes of the society. Actually, Bourdain is one of these people himself. He supports this statement by numerous stories of his drug-, crime- and sex-infused culinary career. As for artistry in cooking, there is none. Cooking is all about mindless, unvarying repetition. Only a few executive chefs in high-end restaurants have a luxury of being creative with the food they make.
Besides the anecdotes about dysfunctional kitchen workers,
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly is a sort of biographical account of Bourdain's cooking career. He talks about how his love for food came about. He takes us on his life journey - from a dishwasher in a seaside joint to an executive chef position in a swanky NYC restaurant. He describes his experiences in failed and successful businesses. Offers practical advice about the industry and food. The morsels of wisdom I am taking away from this book are: don't order specials and don't attend brunch buffets (apparently, both are dumping grounds for old leftovers); don't eat at places with dirty bathrooms; vegetarians are crazy and sickly people who can't be trusted.
As a narrator, Bourdain is very entertaining. He is a no-nonsense, no-holding-back kind of writer, sarcastic and witty and, I assume, quite honest about his exploits. One does start to wonder however if he is laying the bad boy thing a little too thick. It is interesting that in spite of his years-long heroine, cocaine, and alcohol addictions and his bad behavior at work, he not only managed to line one chef job after another in decent places (no McDonald's and Shoney's on his resume) but maintained a marriage as well.
While I thought the book was entertaining, I finished reading it thinking it needed some editing help. First, it is not very well structured, the narration is not cohesive in any shape or form, it reads like a bunch of anecdotes thrown together in no apparent order. The stories of debauchery become repetitive and redundant by the end where I started skipping chapters because none of it was new. Finally, seeing some pictures of people and places Bourdain talks about would have been great too.
Nevertheless, I would recommend this book to all food lovers and especially people who are toying with the idea of becoming restaurateurs or cooks. The author's advice and warnings about the business are sound. I, personally, am convinced not to ever get involved in this business, in any capacity, and will try to continue enjoying food knowing what actually goes on behind the kitchen doors. -
Halfway through this book I remembered I don't have the slightest bit of interest in the culinary arts whatsoever. Luckily, I was listening to it on audiotape. Unluckily, cassette 4 broke and I had to read the rest with my eyes. I'm not sure why I picked this up, I guess because I heard Bourdain was the "punk rock chef," but besides listening to the Sex Pistols and Velvet Underground while he cooked, there's not a whole lot else going on of a punk rock nature. He was a drug addict, but the book kind of skips right over that, which would have been interesting; I'd rather it had been more of a total autobiography than just a chronicle of his history of the restaurant biz, but once again, it's my fault because that's clearly what the book is labeled as. I wanted dirty stories from the seedy underbelly of the high-class dining world, but it didn't really get much wilder than a bunch of cooks making racist, sexist, homophobic jokes. Dude, that's not exclusive to the culinary world, that's pretty much behind the scenes at any workplace, or really any time you get a lot of misplaced testosterone in one room. You're not leading a "pirate crew," you're supervising people who are following recipes. I rented a dvd from his show "No Reservations" and was again surprised at myself for forgetting I don't really care about exotic foods, and that's a traveling show, which I'm also not into. So now I'm watching like 3 hours of a guy I don't like, eating shit I don't care about, in places I'm not interested in going to. It should be noted that I do like Rachel Ray's "Tasty Travels," but that's another story I don't want to get into. The only really funny anecdote I found was when he was in an interview for chef at a new steakhouse in New York, things were going smoothly until the owner asked him, "What do you know about me?" Bourdain thought it over, not sure what he should say, so he said the truth, "Nothing." So then the guy gives him a weird look, and the interview ends with Bourdain knowing he's not getting the job. He walks a few blocks down the street before he realizes the guy actually asked, "What do you know about MEAT."
-
I am ashamed to say I knew very little about Anthony Bourdain before he died. I knew he was a celebrity chef, with a pile of published books, TV shows and a reputation for being abrasive, but not much else. After reading this, I regret not paying more attention when I could, because I found Mr. Bourdain to be an incredibly passionate, well-read, deeply articulate, hysterically funny and brutally honest human being. It is creepy to think I could have crushed on him super hard was he still around?
I'm amused by people who think he was arrogant: I mean, half French, half New Yorker is not a blueprint for humility, but I also found him to have worked his ass off and to have earned his success. He decided he wanted to be the best, and then single-mindedly gave everything to that goal. There's a strong working class ethic that transpires from his writing, a love of work well-done, of hard work that makes him someone with very high standards - because he knew how tough it is to do your best. I have a lot of respect for that, and as far as I am concerned, he earned the right to be a snob. He also acknowledges how grateful he is to anyone who helped him, anyone who gave him an opportunity, anyone who showed loyalty and shared his love of food and good work. That shows a lot of heart; most prickly people are kinda gooey in the middle, and I feel that Bourdain was like that too.
A career in food is a hard, hard thing to do. I don't know if everyone realizes it's not really glamorous, that it requires the weirdest hours, the most strenuous pace and the most frustrating interactions. Bourdain wanted everyone to know what there is behind the curtain, who teams up to put together the beautifully plated and delicious things you eat at fancy restaurants. He did that with self-deprecating humor, and gave no-nonsense advice for people who want to cook like he did - at the risk of deeply offending vegetarians all over the world.
Reading this after Bourdain committed suicide is a bit rough, because while he certainly had a tendency for self-destructive behavior (he mentions excessive drinking and developing a heroin addiction), he also clearly loved to feel alive. How hard it must get for a man who loved life as much as he did to decide it wasn't worth living anymore is beyond what I can imagine, and it makes me incredibly sad to think he took his own life.
Four and a half stars, rounded down because I know a few of those chapters are old articles Bourdain wrote for various publications, and I think the book would hold itself together better if it had been a more continuous narrative. But I will be looking up his other books and scour Netflix for his shows.
--
Additional thoughts:
-Yup, food is sex. I can't trust people who don't enjoy food, who eat just to sustain their bodies and not for the amazing sensual pleasure that eating can be. Maybe its the French and Italian upbringing, but that's just not right to me. Love and fully experience your food! Giving someone delicious, lovingly prepared food is a profound act of love in my opinion. All these thoughts also apply to sex. Obviously.
-My (French) father always said that margarine is the devil's lubricant, and I think he would have disowned me if he had ever found that greasy blasphemy in my fridge. It's nice to have this opinion vindicated. Apologies to my father-in-law and his "I can't believe it's not butter" spray bottles: I will never surrender, Ed!
-Sorry my darling Anthony, but demi-glace is overrated. And no one gets between me and a plate of smoked salmon eggs Benny and lives to tell the tale. Hollandaise is LIFE. Bacteria, shmackteria. What happened to living dangerously?!
-Yes, excessive meat consumption increases the risk of lifestyle diseases. It's also terrible for ecological sustainability. Less meat and a lot more veggies is definitely the way to go, but people who preach about veganism and try to make other people feel like bad human beings for not hopping onto their high-horse really, really need to pipe the fuck down.
-This book made me fall in love with Bourdain; I started reading all his other books and binging every one of his shows I could find. A piece of my heart will always belong to him - not just because he was a smokin' hot, smart-mouthed hunk, but because of how inspired I am by his work, and because of how much I've learned reading him and watching him explore the world. Thank god he wrote this book, which started it all. -
The book's author is clearly impressed with having passed through the esteemed halls of Vassar College, yet prouder still of his hard knocks and rough-and-tumble street degree earned working for a slew of restaurants. Much of the book is spent describing the working stiffs in the culinary field and their wildly anti-social and anti-establishment behavior and greedy incompetent restaurant owners. The anecdotes were mildly amusing for the first hundred pages but tiresome by the end. If you're stuck on a plane with nothing else to read, go for it!
-
I had Kitchen Confidential for quite a while lying in my e-reader and I thought it was about time I read it. I wish I hadn't now! I had thought a book about food can never possibly be so boring and disgusting. But Anthony Bourdain's personality permeates throughout the book and put me off completely.
Bourdain appears to have had a decent enough childhood and his chapter about discovering good food in France was nice. But the rest of it was just him being a dickhead. It is no surprise that most industries are sexism, racism, homophobia, and whatever other "isms" you care to mention. These are not unique to the food industry. But the toxic masculinity that Bourdain advocates, and even revels in, is disgusting.
Tim, a veteran waiter, is dry-humping Cachundo—to Cachundo's apparent displeasure. He's blocking the lane and impeding traffic in the narrow kitchen with his thrusting. I have to ask Tim nicely not to sexually harass my runners during service . . . after work, please.
If you are easily offended by direct aspersions on your lineage, the circumstances of your birth, your sexuality, your appearance, the mention of your parents possibly commingling with livestock, then the world of professional cooking is not for you.
I mean, really! WTF? Who would change things if you don't? He goes on and on in this vein for pages. He was kind enough to admit that some tough women handle the sexual harassment very well and are stars of the kitchen. I mean, are you brain damaged? Why should women have to be experts at handling gropers to work in a fucking kitchen? It's not a fucking qualification!
And then, there are all the Ecuadorians, Mexicans, Cubans, etc. whom he specifically chose in order to exploit them. Looks like people who have no expectations of holidays, sick leave, healthcare, and such, should only work in Bourdain's kitchen. He makes it abundantly clear. That's why he didn't hire white Americans, who would never put up with his shit.
The book was disgusting in other ways too. Bourdain is against vegetarians and frankly I am glad he hated us. Bourdain's never ending descriptions of groping and namecalling in his kitchen got on my nerves very fast. He calls a sexual abuser - one who gropes everyone in the kitchen - his best friend because he was oh, so efficient! But it appears he was more bonkers than ignoring just what many other men like to do.
We considered ourselves a tribe. As such, we had a number of unusual customs, rituals and practices all our own. If you cut yourself in the Work Progress kitchen, tradition called for maximum spillage and dispersion of blood. One squeezed the wound till it ran freely, then hurled great gouts of red spray on the jackets and aprons of comrades. We loved blood in our kitchen.
The man was really messed up. I am not surprised he committed suicide. It appears
he supported the Me Too movement and regretted this horrible memoir before his death, but it's too little too late if you ask me. A lifetime of promoting toxic masculinity cannot be erased with a few words in old age. And this book would serve better as a coaster.
Okay, so there were some interesting bits if you just skimmed through all the abuse and the nasty bits. He offers some cooking tips and a pretty decent insight into dining for customers. I personally find that restaurants in Pune are mostly useless with loud music, large TV playing sports, unbearably bright lights, and indifferent service. It's like they can't decide whether they are a club, sports bar, or operation theatre. Reading Kitchen Confidential gave me some real insights into why restaurants would make it such a chore to sit through a damn meal.
At the end, Bourdain gives tips on how to become a chef. Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining. This business grows assholes: it's our principal export. I'm an asshole. You should probably be an asshole too.
That just about sums up the book and the man. -
Oh boy. Where to begin? I found this book - and by extension Anthony Bourdain - somewhat distasteful.
On the surface, it works. Bourdain promises to take you behind the scenes of the restaurant industry, which he certainly does - it's just that he only takes you to very specific restaurant environments that he has worked in and has directly helped shape, a revelation that he only gets to almost three-quarters of the way through the book. All kitchens are chaotic and full of machismo, he says, and the only way to survive them is to fully commit to the culture. But later, he takes the reader to Scott Bryan’s kitchen, where “there are islands of reason and calm, where the pace is steady, where quality always takes precedence over the demands of volume, and where it's not always about dick dick dick.” I was flabbergasted: this passage seemed to negate almost everything that came before it. The restaurant industry is hard and requires a phenomenal amount of work from its chefs, but it apparently does not, as Bourdain tries to say for hundreds of pages, require them to be assholes.
Bourdain's writing is excellent in parts. I loved his descriptions of various restaurants over his long and interesting career, particularly the
restaurant run by the mafia. The entire segment about Adam (no last name) who makes the magical bread made me laugh out loud. The sections where he’s relating stories about his coworkers and the New York restaurant scene are great; the personal sections, not so much. The structure of the book is choppy and doesn’t have a linear narrative, which makes it hard to follow the thread of his story. Bourdain seems almost too self-aware to write about himself. He’s too ready to call younger versions of himself an idiot. At first, it seems like he gets it - his younger self really was an idiot - but it slowly becomes apparent that he’s still just as arrogant as before. He’s just learned how to make it sound like he’s learned something.
For me, the most telling anecdote in the book, and the one that I’ll remember, is when Bourdain realizes that, statistically, only one in four heroin addicts gets clean. He’s in a car with three other junkies, and he immediately promises himself that he will be the one to get out alive, no matter what. And he does, and he goes on to write that story - but not the story of his recovery - in this book. And that’s all you need to know about Anthony Bourdain. -
It's hard to know how to classify "Kitchen Confidential." Memoir? Expose? Humor? Its author Anthony Bourdain is easier to pin down: the hard-drinking, hard-swearing, hard-living executive chef of a New York restaurant who can't write a sentence without being funny, poignant, or offensive, often simultaneously. Bourdain's book ranges freely over his French childhood where he first got obsessed with food, his time at fry-shacks, grill bars, and the Culinary Institute of America which variously taught him to cook, his exceedingly checkered career as chef for a variety of restaurants both doomed and successful, and his observations on the underbelly of the restaurant biz. He can be lyrical and almost tender (his fierce advocacy for the under-appreciated Latinos who make so much of America's three-star cuisine, and get so little recognition) but things really get fun when he lets it rip. Targets for his sarcasm include celebrity chefs who don't actually cook, the Food Network, and restaurants who pretty up leftover Saturday-night crap and package it for $29.99 as Sunday Brunch. Bourdain's macho testosteronal voice would be unbearable if he didn't make just as much fun of himself as he does of everyone else: he recounts stealing from restaurants in his youth, cheating through Chicken Stock class in the Culinary Institute, snorting cocaine on the job, not being able to cook worth a damn compared to his culinary idols, and in general being an asshole. Maybe he is, but he's a funny asshole and he sure can write. You will never order fish on Tuesday again after reading this book, and you will never walk into a restaurant without looking at the kitchen doors and wondering if the crew making your food is the kind of swaggering foul-mouthed unabashedly entertaining batch of borderline outlaws who are depicted so vividly in Bourdain's pages.
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I reread Kitchen Confidential in memory of Anthony Bourdain. I still can't believe he's gone.
I enjoyed the book and smiled at Anthony's brash-yet-loveable style. Plus, it reminded me of my baby brother, who is also a chef.
Highly recommended for restaurant workers and foodie fans. -
[4.5] Hot damn, Bourdain could write. Despite his legions of fans, plenty of them well-read people, I hadn't expected his prose to be so sparky and propulsive. He definitely wasn't just a TV personality. And this book is so action-packed it deserves to be classified as Adventure.
The structure seems quite daring by the standards of popular non-fiction from twenty years ago, and takes more liberties and digressions within itself than might be expected from the section titles. There's a strong sense here of someone who's confident for other reasons, despite little published experience in the form - and I (and hundreds of thousands of other readers) think he pulls it off. It works as a whole, not only as a series of what we might now call essays. Life provided him with great material to place near the end and then fortuitously added to the structure after publication. His stint in Japan at a branch of his then-employer's small restaurant chain, and the overwhelming enthusiasm he discovers for Tokyo streetfood read like the "to be continued" trailer for his TV travel shows that were commissioned off the back of this book.
Most of us Goodreads regulars probably know of lots of books we'd like to read one day but don't bother shelving on the site because the likelihood of getting round to them seems slight. Even more so IMO if the books are well-known and reminders of their very existence are not so necessary as for obscure titles. "Most of Bourdain" was that for me, but then when you see a book like this on someone else's physical shelves, that can be the nudge towards actually reading it. Kitchen Confidential is a fast, compelling read, and currently I don't have time (especially if I want to catch up with reading challenges) to start a bunch of big old classics.
But there were two or three times when I picked it up and thought "I'm not sure I can be bothered with people like this any more" - quite that crazy and intoxicated and disruptive and loud and laddish, I mean. Maybe reducing it to a metaphorical volume 7/10 would have been okay? At my age, people who used to be debauched and who have somewhat (though not necessarily entirely) cleaned up their act, are better company than the full-on hellraising article. (This is why I didn't give the book 5 stars.) Though one notable thing about AB and most of his colleagues here, in contrast to people with similar lifestyles in other industries: if they were anything, they were reliable.
It made me think a bit about my complicated but largely positive relationship with masculinity. I find a lot of the typical behaviour of groups of women tedious and irritating and try to stay away from it as much as I can. I had to admit whilst reading Kitchen Confidential - in a way that I wouldn't have allowed myself to when I was in my twenties - that the extended banter described there is equally irritating and dislikable (though there is arguably a verbal creativity to it - before it gets too repetitive - that I can respect). If it were possible to do a reverse Orlando and magically become male - as I have daydreamed about at many points in my life since I read Woolf's novel in my late teens - dealing with this stuff would surely be one of the least enjoyable aspects of life. Most men I've known reasonably well as friends, lovers or both, haven't been big fans of extended sports banter and the like either (though seem to have some reasonable skill with it where necessary). I'm just not a group-orientated person, most of the people I get on best with aren't either, and I think there can be something peculiarly suffocating about large single-sex groups when one is expected to fit in with them as a member of the same sex. Men usually learn to have a shell that fits, at least for a few hours at a time, even if they don't really like group banter. It's easier to have a carapace or facade in the conversations of all/mostly-male groups - there is a way to join in without revealing yourself. Whereas women's collective culture is often based on opening up sincerely about things on which either a) I probably feel or experience differently from everyone else there, and about which I learned half a lifetime ago that I CBA with the weird looks and silences, or b) I don't want to share with people like that, and definitely not in a group. (I am now imagining women doing comedy mock boasting about heaviness or lightness of periods - in the style of
this old interview between Will Self & Bruce Robinson where they are messing about with dick jokes - and wondering why that isn't a thing. Easier to deal with than a bunch of women giving you another 'not one of us' look for saying you hardly get any pain, as the things-not-in-common keep stacking up through a conversation.)
Back to the book in hand ... Bourdain later regretted aspects of it, and
posted on a blog in December 2017:
To the extent which my work in Kitchen Confidential celebrated or prolonged a culture that allowed the kind of grotesque behaviors we’re hearing about all too frequently is something I think about daily, with real remorse.
Whilst reading it nearly four years later, I thought often about articles, particularly from the Guardian, about how restaurant kitchen culture is changing, especially but not only since #metoo ... I'm assuming that, because it's the Guardian, that the change is very patchy indeed and probably with younger teams in urban areas. (Having, before this year, spent so much time at home ill and on the internet, I used to overestimate the impact Very Online social justice culture had in the real world in general, and am now seeing the difference, between internet and reality, especially in middle-aged centre-left people. I'd assume it's no different in kitchens, and change is probably slower if anything.) Saying that, though, Bourdain admits in Kitchen Confidential that not all chef contemporaries of his were as wild and aggressive as his team.
And his TV shows demonstrate there was more to him than belligerence - unlike, for example, the one-note Gordon Ramsay. The other day I saw yet again that question "which (dead) famous people would you most like to have dinner with?" Based on my experience of meeting a somewhat-famous person I admired (live, obviously), I'd say that with some common answers (especially renowned wits) you risk barely being able to keep up with them and feeling a little embarrassed, or like a mere audience. However, Bourdain - as well as being someone who'd choose, or cook, amazing food - appears to have been good conversationally with different types of people, and whilst intelligent and well-read, was not intimidatingly so like a Wilde or an Einstein.
(I also have some opinions about Bourdain's last days, Asia Argento and media coverage, but I'm not sure to what extent GR still cracks down on posts that discuss authors' personal lives, so to be on the safe side I will refrain.)
This book is maybe not as "of its time" as some would like to think. I'm sure there are still restaurants run this way, and inexperienced staff jumping ship to try and find somewhere friendlier. Regardless, it's a fun read with great prose, especially if you enjoy good food and picaresque adventures, and you have a decent tolerance for accounts of macho bullshit and eating dead animals - though if that's you, you probably already read this years ago. -
I wanted to write in Kitchenese, the secret language of cooks, instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever dunked french fries for a summer job or suffered under the despotic rule of a tyrannical chef or boobish owner.
I worked in restaurants through high school and college. I certainly hope things have changed over the last twenty years since this book was published, but Kitchen Confidential does a brilliant job of presenting the insanity of the aggressively masculine kitchen culture I remember. Some of the ‘trade secrets’ from when this book was first published (such never order fish on a Monday) have become conventional wisdom, but there’s still a great deal of smart observations and humor spread throughout. Well worth reading or re-reading. RIP, Chef Bourdain.
…
So who the hell, exactly, are these guys, the boys and girls in the trenches? You might get the impression from the specifics of my less than stellar career that all line cooks are wacked-out moral degenerates, dope fiends, refugees, a thuggish assortment of drunks, sneak thieves, sluts and psychopaths. You wouldn't be too far off base. The business, as respected three-star chef Scott Bryan explains it, attracts 'fringe elements', people for whom something in their lives has gone terribly wrong. Maybe they didn't make it through high school, maybe they're running away from something-be it an ex-wife, a rotten family history, trouble with the law, a squalid Third World backwater with no opportunity for advancement. Or maybe, like me, they just like it here. -
Reading this only now, in 2021, you could say I missed that gourmet meal when it was piping hot. The timing turns out perfect for that documentary that just came out, however, and I’ll try to watch Road Runner within the next few days. This wasn’t planned, believe it or not.
I enjoyed Kitchen Confidential. My picks are all over the place as of late, it feels like I’m trying things on for size again, but Eat a Peach by David Chang was already a hit with me in January and trying out Bourdain’s book this time around brought me back to a similar happy place. The twenty-year difference between the two memoirs makes itself immediately felt; I got a great kick out of it. Popular dishes, star ingredients, other celebrity chefs in the making and their own restaurants, bands the crew listened to while cooking: surely you can imagine the trip back in time Kitchen Confidential now represents. Ooh ah, Frank Sinatra just made it into the dining room. And wait, is that Kirk Douglas over there in that banquette?
Aside from loads of personal stories about bad boys – and girls – rubbing elbows in overheated spaces, there is a wealth of info in this book about restaurant dynamics in general and the constellation of people involved in the food business. I expect most of it to remain relevant to this day. Bourdain has a knack for pacing and never stays in place terribly long, literally or figuratively; one thing that Kitchen Confidential does to perfection, two decades after its publication, is to keep you entertained. Still works!
Now bring out the popcorn, I’m heading to the movies. -
How could I have never reviewed this book? I read this at a key turning point in my life, and was one of those books that changed everything for me. I was 22. I had gotten married and gone directly to graduate school right after graduating with a BA in music, with a full ride and graduate assistantship in the School of Folklore at Indiana University. It wasn't a good fit for me. By the time I enrolled in the fieldwork class, I knew I was probably on my way out, and got permission to do my fieldwork assignments in restaurant kitchens. The culinary-school trained cooks in the restaurant commanded me to read this book when I was still just observing and volunteering (I later worked there until I moved away), and it solidified my love for an industry that I was already excited by because of my experiences.
Anthony Bourdain may seem a bit extreme, but his tales of what really goes on in restaurants and among cooks is not that far off from my own experiences. Ask me to tell you about the time I slammed the head waiter's head in the fridge door, or ask for a kitchen-scar tour of my body. Once you are immersed in that world, it changes you. I loved it. I loved the rush, the thrill, the creativity, the challenge. I feel like Bourdain's memories are my memories. I may love him as a TV personality and a guest actor in my dreams, but this is where I love him the most. -
I hadn't read this in years. It's acerbic and filled with dark energy. It manages to be self-deprecating and egotistical at the same time. It's honest, except he's not a reliable narrator. It's great stuff.
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It was really interesting to get an inside peek into the pressure and complexity of some of these kitchens that were plating for 200 to 300 customers a night. On top of that there was the wheeling and dealing, not only suppliers but with owners, bosses, drug runners and other associated people. It turns out that, in this industry, unlike many, its not what you know, but, *what you actually know* plus, who you know. People do not come back for mediocre food or service.
I would have loved to have eaten something dished up by Bourdain, it is astonishing what he knows about food and its preparation and I very much enjoyed these aspects of his book. However, my romantic notions of having lost yet another a great person to the tragedy of suicide, have simmered somewhat, down to a dull sauce. This guy was ambitious and creative, but he was also cruel and demanding and rude to almost everyone he crossed paths with. These are character traits that he himself reveals inside these pages. He is overly foul mouthed (I am pretty bad myself, I cuss like a wharvies daughter, but he is next, next, next level) to the extent that I needed to skip to the next paragraph quite a few times to avoid his macho, sexist talk. He admits it was bad, he was bad, everything was fucked, it was tough work keeping your reputation, finding your groove..... At the same time, he gives us insight into some of the most remarkable food that has ever been prepared and consumed. He talks about genius or near-genius chefs he has worked with, and how some of these people have become his loving, lifetime friends in which he has absolute trust and faith. An interesting book, which I have had on my shelf since June 2018. R.I.P. Mr Bourdain. -
No one needs me to tell them anything about this book, I feel like I'm the last person in the universe to read it. Bourdain is a really good writer and he makes it very hard to criticize him, anything you're going to say he's already said. And yet.
I started out enjoying this a lot but after a while it lost some momentum. More than that, I just started to get tired of the shtick. You know, the macho tough kitchen guy shtick. Bourdain insists that this is how it is and also insists, in the way only a straight white cis man can, that it is not an atmosphere that is targeting women or queer people. No, this is a place where everyone gets attacked, everyone is called out, everyone is insulted. He doesn't seem to get that there's a real difference between being a straight guy in that environment where the language revolves around straight male-ness and when you're not the person being centered in those conversations. Sure a straight guy is going to laugh at another straight guy by using some gay slurs and he'll use the exact same gay slurs against a gay guy, but do you really think those two people are going to hear those slurs the same way? It's shockingly oblivious. To Bourdain's credit, in one chapter he takes down every argument he's made by showing another chef's kitchen where there isn't this hostile atmosphere, but after showing that it doesn't have to be this way he doesn't have a moment of insight or self-reflection, considering the way his whole industry is pushing people out. -
It’s evident early on Anthony Bourdain lived the life on the edge and had a penchant for the underworld, the misfits and the miscreants. He depicts his early adventures in the kitchen, making life long friends with some of the seediest players, the kitchens he was most fond of were toxic masculine playgrounds, typical locker room behaviour, plenty of ass slapping, penis grabbing and hurled abuses and insults the order of the day. Very much a place to easily score drugs, get laid and get into all kinds of trouble, it’s also a place he discovers the kinship and loyalty of those same guys, most having his back and him returning the favour. I very much enjoyed hearing the warts and all scenes behind some of the kitchens of New York in the 80’s, the hits and the many misses of the restaurant world. Its a job that requires dedication and lots of stamina to keep up, the restaurant business is not for the faint hearted. It’s not hard to fathom his untimely death by suicide, he was always attracted to destructive forces and ultimately those dark forces sadly ended his life too early.
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Advanced warning: I tend to take on the vernacular of whomever I'm reading, so now might be a good time to mention that Anthony Bourdain has a very colorful ... er ... style.
So, I've finished reading Anthony Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, which is basically about all the craziness that goes on behind the scenes in the restaurant world. As I started reading the book, I thought I'd be of one of two minds by the end: either I'd never want to eat out again, or I'd want to chuck the teaching career and become a chef. Now that I've finished the book, I can honestly say that I really don't want to do either. I still will eat out although I'll never have fish on Monday -- not that that's too difficult since I don't order fish unless I'm actually at a place where I can smell the salt water. And I don't want to become a chef. I'm not at all suited for that craziness when the mad rush comes in.
However, what I would love to do is to figure out how to take Bourdain's Gonzo-style management and use it in teaching. The thing about Bourdain is that he just takes his balls out and lays them on the table and says "Yep, there they are. Look at them." He's just the best kind of badass because he has the talent to back up his swagger, but he also is plenty capable of fucking up. The thing that's so sexy about that, though, is that when he does screw something up, he owns it. Is it occasionally inappropriate to lay one's balls on the table and issue the directive to look at them? Yes. Absolutely. Does he fall apart when he realizes that he's done the wrong thing? No. He shrugs his shoulders and accepts the repercussions. This isn't to say that he doesn't care or that he is a complete asshole. There is plenty of evidence in the book that he does care and that he takes his fuck-ups to heart and tries to do better--to correct the dish so that it works the next time. I already kind of have this attitude in teaching -- I have tried some things that haven't worked, and I've tried to own it and accept the repercussions, but I think I'll try to acknowledge this attitude a bit more, and I would really like to figure out how to get my students to take this attitude towards their writing.
This really struck me this week as I was finishing Bourdain's book and a list-serv that I'm a member of was filled with temporary and adjunct instructors who are all upset about an article that appeared in the June issue of The Atlantic Monthly. A majority of the members of the list are upset because the author of the article, who teaches as a community college and at a lower-tier state school, basically points out that not everyone is capable of passing a college English course and that it is often the job of those who teach the entry level courses, i.e., the people who stand on the lower rungs of the academic ladder, to be the hatchet men of academe. I agree with the author of the article. In an ideal world, as teachers, we want to help anyone who wants to learn. But nationwide, and especially in my state, we don't live anywhere near ideal when it comes to education.
Anyway, I'll start to get my syllabi ready for the fall semester soon, and as I do, I will be trying to figure out how to take a different approach to teaching this semester. A Gonzo-style approach.
