Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
Book Review (Not) and Notes - 9/10
I never understood the appeal of Anthony Bourdain. My love for travel inevitably led to his most recent TV show, Parts Unknown. I deemed it unremarkable after viewing a few episodes. That was it.
Then he died. Recently, he started becoming interesting. Not because he died, though it seems to be a human condition to start appreciating what they no longer have.
No, he started getting interesting when I learned he used to be in rehab and turned his life around. Per Joe Rogan, Bourdain had lost weight and had become an avid practitioner of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as well.
Thanks to the overlords at Google, I came upon Bourdain’s interview with Fast Company. They say it’s the last one before his death. Now I liked the guy. His philosophy and values clicked with me. What can I say? I changed over the years and my opinion of him changed too.
After dozens of hours watching and listening to every Bourdain interview I could find, I learned Kitchen Confidential was what started the career most people know him for, his work creating shows like No Reservation, The Layover, and Parts Unknown (all of which I watched again and learned to love).
An article he submitted to the New Yorker (I think) led to the book deal that helped him pay all his debts and his taxes at 44 and led him on a world book tour pushing him to continue the world food tour in the subsequent years. It made sense this is where I would start to dig deeper into this man I started getting obsessed with.
Kitchen Confidential is an autobiographical look at the life of a cook through Bourdain’s 27-year career in the industry. A life he didn’t expect to leave. It’s quite like how Winston Churchill wrote an autobiography for his life up to the 1930s, not knowing he would go onto be known globally for what he did a few years after writing it. Not saying Bourdain and Churchill are comparable people — I like Bourdain more at the moment.
Would it be too cliche if the book made me humbled by the life of a cook? I admit there were moments where the military-esque life appeared attractive. That is, right up until Bourdain set me straight by walking me through a typical 17 hour day for a cook.
I learned a lot from this book. Many of which I hope to share with you, my dear readers. It’s information that I think is akin to a public service announcement. Things I think people should know.
Before the PSA, I want to share a passage where Bourdain describes his favourite sous-chef.
“What finally made him a serious character in my eyes was the night he ran a knife through his hand while trying to hack frozen demi-glace out of a bucket. Squirting blood allover the place, he wrapped his hand in an apron and listened to my instructions: ‘Get your sorry ass down to Saint Vincent’s, they’ve got a fast emergency room. Get yourself stitched up and get yourself back here in two fucking hours! We’re gonna be busy as hell tonight and I need you on the line!’ He returned ninety minutes later and managed to work, one-handed, on the sautés station, very capably cranking out 150 or so a la carte dinners.”
I love this passage. It’s also the tone at which Bourdain writes. The book reads as if he is narrating to me — a personal tour through the cramped and hot kitchens.
I found myself laughing out loud as I read his journey from a private school educated misfit navigating the life of cook from NYC to Japan, detouring into Heroin and high beyond life to running a kitchen run by the mafia. A book filled with nuggets of wisdom, insights on life, and an adventure all in one.
A chapter that had me giggling like the immature teenager that never seemed to have left me (or any other guy I know) is Bourdain’s dictionary for kitchen lingo. Here are some.
Cabrone: “Your wife/girlfriend is getting fucked by another guy right now — and you’re too much of a pussy to do anything about it” can also mean “my brother”, depending on inflection and tone
Fuck: a comma
Suck my dick: “Could you please wait a moment?"
My friend: “'Asshole' in the worst and most sincere sense of the world."
Asshole: It’s serious when used. It shows genuine anger.
VIP: "Very Important Pendejo"
Now to some PSAs.
Hire South Americans.
“A three-star Italian chef pal of mine was recently talking about why he — a proud Tuscan who makes his own pasta and sauces form scratch daily and runs one of the best restaurant kitchens in New York — would never be so foolish as to hire any Italians to cook on his line. He greatly prefers Ecuadorians, as many chefs do: ’The Italian guy? You screaming at him in the rush, “Where’s the risotto?! Is that fucking risotto ready yet? Gimme that risotto!”… and the Italian he’s gonna give it to you. An Ecuadorian guy? He’s gonna just turn his back and stir the risotto and keep cooking it until it’s done the way you showed him. That’s what I want.’”
“No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American. The Ecuadorian, Mexican, Dominican and Salvadorian cooks I’ve worked with other the years make most CIA-educated white boys look like clumsy, sniveling little punks.”
That might be why many tech start-ups in Canada and the U.S are now hiring developers in South America, Asia, and Eastern Europe. They aren’t looking for someone who’ll bitch about their standard of living. The company is busy trying to survive every day, they need someone who will shut up, work hard and just execute (i.e. "Screw your artistic need to express yourself. Go do that at a company flush with cash).
For Home Cooking
For knives, get the “inexpensive vanadium steel Global knives”. You need one good chef’s knife and that’s it.
The kings of adding flavour to dishes are butter, shallots, roasted garlic, chiffonaded parsley, and stock. They are what make restaurant food ‘pop’. Every home cook will benefit from using them. I stocked my kitchen with all of them.
Never Listen to Your Friends
Don’t be the friend that tells friends to open up a restaurant. Most, if not all, individuals who are egged on to open restaurants because their friends tell them how great they would be because of taste in food, culture, hosting, etc…. All end up pissing away all their money in the failing restaurant.
The friends who told them to start the restaurant come in the beginning to take credit and free meals and never call back when things go downhill. Don’t be that friend.
Now, here is the big list of things to watch out for as a diner.
Avoid Mondays + Specials:
Never order fish on Mondays. It’s leftover shit.
Avoid eating anything that’s a special. It sounds “special” but it’s often leftovers the kitchen needs to get rid of. The special isn’t very special.
Sunday or Monday specials will not have perishable items like codfish. Only the resilient and sturdy leftover heaps remain to be fed to diners.
Never eat discount sushi. You are being fed garbage and what’re you going to do? Sue? You ate discount sushi! People who sell discount sushi often buy leftover fish for cheap at the fish market. You are being fed 2x the discount.
“‘Beef Parimentier’? ’Shepherd’s pie’? ‘Chili special’? Sounds like leftovers to me."
Avoid Brunch:
“Brunch menus are an open invitation to the cost-conscious chef, a dumping ground for the odd bits left over from Friday and Saturday nights or for the scraps generated in the normal course of business.”
Avoid hollandaise sauce unless you know the place makes them fresh. Most don’t and leave them sitting under some heater.
“Bacteria love hollandaise…..Nobody I know has ever made hollandaise to order.”
“'Brunch Menu.’ Translation? ‘Old, nasty odds and ends, and 12 dollars for two eggs with a free Bloody Mary’.”
“Cooks hate brunch. A wise chef will deploy his best line cooks on Friday and Saturday nights…Brunch is punishment block for the ‘B’-Team cooks, or where the farm team of recent dishwashers learn their chops. Most chefs are off on Sundays, too, so supervision is at a minimum, Consider that before ordering the seafood frittata."
Love the free bread?
“The reuse of bread is an industry-wide practice."
Beware drenching of dressing & sauces:
“For ‘en vinaigrette’ on the menu, read ‘preserved’ or ‘disguised’.
Drenching old shit in sauce is a common tactic to dupe the unsuspecting diner.
It’s not “Cheap”, chefs will find a way to recoup costs.
“Every piece of cut, fabricated food must, ideally, be sold for three or even four times its cost in order for the chef to make his ‘food cost percent’.”
Reminds me of how most restaurant companies aim for a 25% margin. Whatever you are eating, know the restaurant is making a 25% margin on it.
Chicken you say?
“…chicken is boring. Chefs see it as a menu item for people who don’t know what they want to eat.”
Well-done is a sin.
Dear God, please never order well-done. The cooks will take joy in punishing your stupidity.
“…what happens when the chef finds a tough, slightly skanky end-cut of sirloin, that’s been pushed repeatedly to the back of the pile?….he can ‘save for well-done’ — serve it to some rube who prefers to eat his meat or dish incinerated into a flavourless, leathery hunk of carbon, who won’t be able to tell if what he’s eating is food or flotsam.”
Vegetarians…..
“Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food.”
Bourdain isn’t referring to the religious. He is referring to the upper-middle-class shit from a developed country who preaches vegetarianism when 80% of the human population would love to live in a place where meat wasn’t a once-per-year luxury. There are good vegetarians out there. It’s just the ignorant, arrogant preachy shits that ruin the reputation for others.
“Amoebas, however, are transferred most easily through the handling of raw, uncooked vegetables, particularly during the washing of salad greens and leafy produce. So think about that next time you want to exchange deep tongue kisses wit ha vegetarian. I’m not even going t talk about blood. Let’s just say we cut ourselves a lot in the kitchen and leave it at that.”
I will continue to rationalize my disgust at salads for avoidance of human blood in my food.
Which kitchens are sanitary?
“I won’t eat in a restaurant with filthy bathrooms….Bathrooms are relatively easy to clean. Kitchens are not….God knows what they’re doing to your shrimp!"
In reference to a cook’s mise en place, their work station: “messy station equals messy mind”. This is the same for judging a kitchen by the bathroom.
Be vigilant not only for bathrooms but how the waiters carry themselves too. Messy and dirty waiters show an uncaring owner who will have lower standards for the kitchen staff.
Weekday > Weekends
“…weekend diners are universally viewed with suspicion, even contempt, by both cooks and waiters alike...Weekday diners, on the other hand, are the home team —potential regulars, whom all concerned want to make happy….He <the chef> wants you to be happy on Tuesday night. On Saturday, he’s thinking more about turning over tables and getting through the rush.”
I guess my avoidance of weekend crowds and eating out in the middle of the week may have paid off. Whether it’s investing, food, or everything in life, avoiding the herd seems to always pay dividends.
Bourdain’s advice for eating out
"Watchword for fine dining? Tuesday through Saturday. Busy. Turnover. Rotation. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best nights to order fish in New York.”
“I will continue to do my seafood eating on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, because I know better, because I can wait."
I’ve been checking my local markets and butcher shops and they resupply their meat on Wednesdays. They focus on getting rid of everything on Saturday for the weekend tourists that come down. Bourdain’s rules seem to apply there.
Bourdain says good eating means taking risks. Just know the risks. We take risks every day crossing the street. It’s what it means to be living. Bourdain isn’t telling people to not eat out. On the contrary. Eat out. He’s just trying to help some suckers out.
At the end of the day, readers will do well to form their own opinions. Bourdain mentions, on numerous occasions, that these are experiences from a sample size of one. Things change with time, cities, cultures, etc….
I’m still going to eat brunch. It’s my favourite meal to eat out. There’s a rickety diner I like that serves waffles that taste like cardboard. I love the $9 Belgian waffles from the fancy brunch places that line up Vancouver’s downtown too. But the cardboard waffle is what I crave often.
That’s it for the PSAs. I’ll end this with a line I found profound and refreshing.
“Cooking is a craft, I like to think, and a good cook is a craftsman —not an artist.”
It’s not about demeaning others. Bourdain admits there is one cook he considers an artist. But it’s a mindset worth having. A craftsman needs to chisel at his craft, to get better day in and day out. There is a mechanical element to the practice.
Think about the chefs who serve 300 dishes a night. In a year, they would’ve served 93,900 dishes (remember the chef doesn’t work on Sundays). That’s ~94k dishes that can’t be fucked around for some “artistic” creativity. Customers come expecting the same thing. It’s the way of the professional. It’s easy to forget that being a professional comes first. People hire professionals.
I would rate the book 9/10. I enjoyed it and I hope others will too.