I’m a few chapters into Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and I feel bad but I’m absolutely hating it. Everyone talks about how this is excellent food writing but I just find myself thinking what a self-important jerk he seems to be. It’s really distracting.
Is this because I’m in my thirties and have missed something? Is this how chefs are? I know there was a culture of abuse in the food industry but I thought it was getting better to some extent.
I’m just curious as to what I’m missing. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
by No_Instance18
5 Comments
I believe he is meant to come across as a jerk, but a realistic one. Some reviewers theorize that his book was a rebuttal to Emril L. and Rachael R. and the entire Food Network culture at the time.
If you’ve never worked in the food / service industry, you may not click with that book. For those of us who were in it in the late 90s-2000s, this book said all of the quiet parts out loud. Having not been in the industry for a while now, I can’t say how much may have changed since. Pay at least seems to be better nowadays.
You just have bad taste.
Someone smarter than me might be able to explain in culinary history, but there was an attitude that the dining experience was that the customer came first, and that the illusion of what comes out of the kitchen on a clean plate versus the reality of how it was produced in thr kitchen (shitshow) shouldn’t be fully revealed. This attitude sort of changed in the 80s and 90s as the rise of television and a saturation of media blew the lid off a lot of these industries and gave people a reason to watch and learn. Learning about how the sausage is made so to speak.
The allure of Bourdain was that he had the appearance of a gruff working class upbringing but he was surprisingly erudite. He spent most of his life in the trenches as a middling chef while his actual talents were undiscovered and unfulfilled. There’s a lot of blunt truth in Kitchen Confidential that I think people who’ve never worked in hospitality find fascinating. To the people who have though, its less revealing information and more his personality that comes through. He was an avid reader and romantic and that came through in all the works he produced.
Yes, it is .