Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (2000)

"Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride."

If you're anything like me, you probably haven't given much thought to how the food actually gets to your plate when ordering in a restaurant. You sit down, you eat, you drink, you soak in the atmosphere, you pay and you leave - either satisfied or not. What doesn't occur is the absolute miracle that has taken place behind those swinging doors for this experience to even take place at all. 

Anthony Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential' came out in the year 2000 to widespread acclaim. At the time, there were very few, if any, since Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London', first-hand accounts of the machinations at work behind the restaurant industry. This proved to be a thrilling and endlessly fascinating look into a sub-culture most people will never know or be a part of. It serves as both an autobiography of Bourdain himself and a no holds barred exposé of what goes on in the world of food service. For example, I will likely never order fish on a Monday as long as I live. 

After lovingly-recalled childhood trips to France and the slog through culinary school, Anthony's career begins in Provincetown, MA where he works as a line cook at a multitude of seafood restaurants and largely lurks in the background admiring the head chefs and masochistic madness that everyone around him seems to put themselves through. Frequent comparisons are made to 'pirate ships' and, judging by the depravity going on, you can see why. The picture he consistently paints is that most kitchens, at least during this time, were a cauldron of sex, sweat, profanity, booze, cigarettes and class-A drugs. The divide between front of house and back of house might as well be an ocean. The madness going on out back to create the serenity out front cannot be ignored. For every elderly couple enjoying a lovely lobster bisque, there is a bride-to-be being nailed in the dry storage cupboard. This is the dichotomy of the restaurant life. 

As his career begins to improve, Bourdain moves to New York City and eventually becomes not only a head chef in his own right, but one of the stars of the scene. All of this is well known and somewhat well documented, therefore doesn't really break new ground. Where this book really sparkles is when it gets specific. There is a chapter devoted entirely to a day in the life of a chef and it is not only absolutely compelling, but makes you wonder why anyone would choose this life to begin with. To say these people work hard is an understatement and you begin to see why the appeal of sex, drugs and booze become so strong. 

“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. ”

There are tips and tricks, which are useful, and the absolute love of the art of cuisine is clear throughout. It's enough to make the average cheese-toastie maker want to head to the local market, get a set of knives and give it a go. But again, the star here is the scene itself. Full of transients, hedonism, complete insanity and a seemingly bottomless well of endurance, the world in which this book exists is not for the faint of heart. If you don't enjoy being called a 'cocksucker' for no apparent reason, this might not be the life for you. No matter how much you love caviar tartin. That said, there is a love of food that continues to draw people from all walks of life. Maybe, somewhere deep in our bones, the simple act of using your craft to feed another human is something innate in us from ages past. Maybe it's a kinship which binds us all. Otherwise why else would you put yourself through such stress?

Early on, the stall is set out to offer us insight into who actually cooks your food and what goes into getting it onto your plate. On that level, the book is a completely engrossing and educational read. I'm not sure I'll be able to complain about my food being delayed ever again. Frankly it takes a mountain of hard work and good fortune for it to even make it to you at all, so it's probably a good idea to be patient. But outside of this, we have here a funny, heartfelt, rip-roaring ride into one of the more bizarre sub-divisions of human life. There is an endless carousel of weird and wonderful characters which keep the entertainment levels high and, at times, reads almost like fiction. Somehow, however, you know in your heart that all of it is real. Bourdain's experiences, not to mention his own love of food, bleeds through almost every page, making for a truly authentic viewpoint and this should probably be considered a must read for any aspiring foodies out there. 

★★★★☆

JB