If you want to cook like a pro, there are only a few tools Tony has recommended in your kitchen: If you`re one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers petting your food, you shouldn`t go out to eat. As author and former chef Nicolas Freeling notes in his authoritative book, “The Kitchen,” the better the restaurant, the more your food will be stung, stung, manipulated and tasted. When a three-star crew finished carving and arranging your monkfish saddle with dried cherries and wild herbs in a Parthenon or space needle, there were dozens of sweaty fingers everywhere. Gloves? You find a box of surgical gloves “in my kitchen, we call them `research gloves` above every station on the line, for the benefit of health inspectors, but does anyone actually use them? Yes, a chef will attract a couple from time to time, especially if they handle something with a lingering smell like salmon. But during working hours, gloves are clumsy and dangerous. If you use your hands constantly, latex will drop things, which is the last thing you want to do. I`ve been a chef in New York for over ten years, and for the past ten years I`ve had a dishwasher, a prep drone, a line manager, and a sous-chef. I entered the shop while the chefs were still smoking on the line and wearing headbands. A few years ago, I was not surprised to hear rumors of a study of the country`s prison population, which reportedly found that the main civilian job among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the hospitality industry know, there is a lot of crime in the industry. From the bus boy who sells drugs with a beep and a cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two accounting books. In fact, it was the unappetizing side of professional cooking that attracted me in the first place.
In the early seventies, I dropped out of college and transferred to the Culinary Institute of America. I wanted it all: the cuts and burns on my hands and wrists, the horrible humor of the kitchen, the free food, the stolen alcohol, the camaraderie that flourished in a rigid order, and the agonizing chaos. I climbed the chain of command from mal carne (which means “bad meat” or “new guy”) to the leadership and did whatever it took to run my own kitchen and have my own cutthroat team, the culinary equivalent of “The Wild Bunch.” “Like I said before, I really admire the tough women in busy kitchens. You have, as you can imagine from the reports in this book, a lot to endure in our intentionally stupid little corner of hell`s locker room, and women who can survive and thrive where a high-testosterone universe is too rare. While some restaurants handle their molds with care, this was rarely Bourdain`s experience in the kitchen. “In most cases, mussels are allowed to wallow in their own foul-smelling pee at the bottom of a reach in,” he revealed in Kitchen Confidential. They are rarely picked to ensure everyone is healthy before being quickly cooked and served in a saucepan. When ordering them, be sure to check them carefully before eating them. Rare or moderately rare is excellent in many dishes, but chicken is not one of them. When kitchens are closed (meaning they`re overwhelmed by the number of incoming orders), they can accidentally ship a piece of chicken that looks good from the outside but still gluttonous inside. Before taking a bite, use a knife and fork to cut into the thickest part of the meat.
If it is pink, send it back. Just to be sure, I would order something else. Scott Bryan has broken countless rules of gastronomy and has always tasted success. Bourdain changed the way people thought about restaurants, and the way he highlighted the way kitchens are run will lead to better working conditions for many, says Corby Kummer, food editor at The Atlantic. And his writing was unmatched. Gastronomy is the science of pain. The professional leaders belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of Stoicism in the face of impending humiliation, injury, fatigue and illness. The members of a tight and well-greased kitchen staff resemble a submarine crew. Confined most of their waking hours in warm, sucked rooms and ruled by despotic rulers, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor juices squeezed into the royal navies of the Napoleonic era—superstition, contempt for foreigners, and loyalty to no flag other than their own.