Kitchen Confidential Adventures in the Culinary UnderbellyWorldCat • LibraryThing • Google Books • BookFinder
Anthony Bourdain pulls no punches in this memoir of his lifetime in the restaurant industry. He sets out to describe what the people who toil behind swinging kitchen doors are really like, explicitly pointing out the differences between them and squeaky-clean TV chefs — or at least their on-screen personas. Bourdain details his rise through the culinary world, from a teenaged dishwasher in a coastal Massachusetts tourist town to the Culinary Institute of America-trained Executive Chef at Brasserie Les Halles in New York. His ascent was far from smooth — inexperience, drug addiction, crazy emploerys and employees, and run-ins with organized crime all took their toll. But for Bourdain, cooking — really food — is an all-consuming passion, and he seems able to bounce back from anything.
Beyond being a gritty memoir, Kitchen Confidential offers a great deal of insight into how professional kitchens and restaurants in general function. Bourdain explains on which days of the weeks various food items are generally freshest, which dishes typically have the highest mark-ups, what menu items to avoid, and what sorts of special requests tend to piss cooks off. He also offers advice on kitchen tools, garnishing methods, and ingredient selection for the amateur cook hoping to emulate fancy restaurant techniques.
Kitchen Confidential is a very interesting read, if one can get past Bourdain’s blustery tone, salty language, and sometimes unsavory doings. He is a good writer, despite these things, and his intelligence and whit often shine through, making this a book that’s hard to set down.
