Kitchen Confidential
I finished a book!
Bourdain was a charming guy. But also kind of an asshole; this is not a revelation since that’s what he called himself. We could’ve been friends, I think.
The book is entertaining. That’s despite the fact that it sometimes seems like just long lists of job titles, famous chefs, restaurants, locations, ingredients, techniques, processes, and dishes I know nothing about. There’s enough scandalous behavior and four letter words to spice it up. It’s even a little too spicy, at times. Like what’s the point of invoking Cagney and Lacey just to insult someone as being uglier than the uglier of the two “after they bulked up to cruiserweight”?
He had disdain for celebrity chefs, even though he became one himself. But he respected Julia Child and Jacques Pepin, who basically invented the concept. (And watching old TV cooking shows, I can see why. It’s funny to watch professional cooks, in the presence of those two, answering simple questions even I know the answer to completely seriously and laughing at little in-jokes that aren’t really in. Julia: And you’re using real vanilla, not the imitation kind? Guest: Yes, not that horrid stuff! Julia: You can never go wrong by using more butter! Guest: Haha, no.)
The best part was learning what it’s really like in a kitchen when the work is going on. The characters and their interactions. People getting in each other’s way. Insults and curses flying. Yelling. Slamming of dishes, pans, doors. Minor injuries. Reminds me a lot of what it was like on a construction site. The fact that English is not the only language being used and you have to learn some Spanish. Going without sleep and showing up hungover or drunk. That the most important thing is showing up. On time. The fact that a lot of people can’t do that for long. The possibility of not getting paid and of not being able to pay bills. The likelihood of eventual business bankruptcy. You have to be crazy or desperate to do it.
I’ve already forgotten exactly how he put it, but he liked good ingredients, honest food, well prepared. Something like that. If in my cooking adventures I can do that occasionally, I’ll call it a success and maybe imagine having a beer with Tony Bourdain.
I signed up for an Edx course called Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science. The books I’ve been reading are supposed to cover this but they’re kind of lame when it comes to science. Half-baked (ha) analogies and even conceptual errors, ugh. Not that they aren’t worthwhile as cookbooks, just that they fall short of what’s advertised. The course has a companion book that looks interesting. They also use On Science and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen as a reference, which seems fairly encyclopedic in form and length.
