For me, the cooking life has been a
long love affair, with moments both sublime and ridiculous. But like a love affair, looking back
you remember the happy times best-the things that drew you in, attracted you in
the first place, the things that kept you coming back for more. I hope I can give the reader a taste of those
things and those times. I've never regretted the unexpected left turn that
dropped me in the restaurant business. And I've long believed that good food,
good eating is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized
Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates', food, for me,
has always been an adventure.
These are few lines of the book ' Kitchen
Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly' by famous American chef Anthony
Michael Bourdain.
The book portrays Bourdain's
professional story and a behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens. The
book makes an honest attempt to present overall view of professional culinary
industry. The commercial kitchen is described as an intense, unpleasant and
sometimes hazardous place of work staffed by what he describes as misfits.
Bourdain believes it's no place for hobbyists and all those entering this
industry will run away screaming if they lack a masochistic, irrational
dedication to cooking.
Bourdain says, "My first
indication that food was something other than a substance one stuffed in one's face
when hungry-like filling up at a gas station-came after fourth-grade elementary
school.
He writes
- "Don't Eat Before You Read
This" in The New Yorker, he spared no one's appetite, revealing what goes
on behind the kitchen door. In Kitchen Confidential, he expanded the appetizer
into a deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet that lays out his
twenty-five years of sex, drugs, and haute cuisine.
From his first oyster in Gironda to
the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center, from the restaurants
of Tokyo to the drug dealers of the East Village, from the mobsters to the
rats, Bourdain's brilliantly written and wonderfully read, wild-but-true tales
make the belly ache with laughter.
The book alternates between a
confessional narrative and an industry commentary, providing insightful and
humorous anecdotes on the cooking trade. Bourdain details some of his personal
misdeeds and weaknesses, including drug use.
He explains how restaurants function
economically and the various restaurateur's tricks of which consumers should be
aware. For example, he advises customers to avoid ordering fish on a Monday as
the fish for Monday would be likely a remnant from the weekend or earlier. He
also suggests avoiding beef well done: the meat is more likely to be from
less-than-best grade as the substandard flavor would be masked in overcooking.
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