As I am preparing my cookbook for publication, I am re-reading several books that have influenced my life and career. In terms of cooking and the grittiness of working in a commercial kitchen, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain is at the top of the list. The book launched Anthony Bourdain from a broke chef to literary superstar overnight.
The book started as an essay titled, Eat This, Not That, and his mother convinced him to submit it to the New York Times. Bourdain was instantly offered a $50,000 publishing deal, leading to more books and, of course, television deals. Bourdain is known more by his bad boy image than his culinary skills. In fact, he admits he wasn’t a superb chef.
The premise of Kitchen Confidential is a behind-the-scenes, raw look at life in a kitchen. Bourdain writes as he talks, brash, in your face language and innuendos. The kitchens in Bourdain’s time we’re grittier than they are now and he rips the lid off the pot to reveal what really goes on in the kitchen from drug use, to sex in the parking lot, and to the frenetic pace that only cooks can know. Bourdain fell in love with the “piratical lifestyle” and revels in the details that he provides.
The book starts with Bourdain’s childhood. While in France on a family vacation, an oyster fisherman introduced him to his first raw oyster, and it was in that moment that Bourdain knew he wanted to cook. He recalls his teenage years as being undisciplined and riddled with LSD and pot. Eventually, he flunked out of college.
When Bourdain thought he could cook professionally, he started work at the busiest Italian restaurant in town. However, he was completely incompetent, and the chef busted him down to dishwasher. He went to the elite Culinary Institute of America and prove the chef wrong. Bourdain struggled in the industry and eventually landed the executive chef position at Les Halles, in New York City.
Kitchen Confidential is more than an autobiography. In the forward Bourdain reveals he will probably be blackballed from the industry he loves by exposing unsanitary practices, the drugs and alcohol abuse, why he hates vegetarians, and why “well-doners” get the scraps. He knows he’ll be hated, but he presses on despite the blowback. The book is highly entertaining and worth a second read.