How back-of-house workers came to the forefront of pop culture.
In “Kitchen Confidential,” the book that launched Anthony Bourdain’s writing career, he explained that his subject was “street-level cooking and its practitioners.” Line cooks—the people actually making your food—“were the heroes,” he wrote. It was clear what kind of heroism he meant: obscured and nearly undetectable; all drudgery, no glory; the hustle its own reward. In the preface to an updated paperback edition, Bourdain said that the book had been wrongly perceived as an exposé of the restaurant business, when all he was trying to do was write something that his fellow cooks found “entertaining and true.” “I was not—and am not—an advocate for change in the restaurant business,” he wrote. “I like the business just the way it is.”
Whether he meant to or not, Bourdain did change the business, in part by stoking the public’s interest in its inner workings. His vivid portrait of life in the kitchen helped turn the line cook into an ascendant figure; a quarter of a century later, people without any particular connection to the industry are familiar with the image of a cook drinking ice water out of a plastic quart container; with the term “back of house”; with the ritual of “family meal.” The TV show “The Bear” has proffered an insider’s view of the quotidian dramas of opening a restaurant, giving focus not only to Carmy, the head chef and owner, but also to Sydney, a sous-chef learning her worth in macho environs, and to Lionel, a quietly ambitious pastry chef.
Denne historien er fra June 24, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra June 24, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”