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275 reviews for:
Hitze: Abenteuer eines Amateurs als Küchensklave, Sous-Chef, Pastamacher und Metzgerlehrling
Bill Buford
3.74 AVERAGE
275 reviews for:
Hitze: Abenteuer eines Amateurs als Küchensklave, Sous-Chef, Pastamacher und Metzgerlehrling
Bill Buford
3.74 AVERAGE
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
If you like Mario Batali, this book may crush you. I walked away not really liking him too much. I did like the end of the book when the author was living in Italy though.
funny
informative
medium-paced
After reading Buford's amazing Among the Thugs I knew I needed to see what else he could do. A long time ago I heard Alton Brown talk about how popular cooking media became in the US after 9/11, as audiences were reaching for the comfort and familiarity of food through their TV's. This trend must've acted like nitrous to the already booming industry of celebrity chefs and high end dining. Heat was written at the height of this obsession with kitchens, restaurants, cooking and food. It's a memoir of sorts that starts with Buford taking time away from his editing work to explore his growing appreciation for food, and to grow his skill set by starting as a kitchen bitch in Mario Batali's New York restaurant Babbo. The book is much more than that though, as Buford takes many trips to Italy and eventually ends up apprenticing under a Butcher in a small town in Tuscany. In many ways it's a love letter to food in general, equal parts culinary history, Italian travelogue, and cooking tutorial.
Buford's writing (and subsequently the book itself) is at it's best when he describes his time at Babbo. There's something about his sarcastic style that is really suited to intense, stressful, and personal moments, no doubt one of the reasons why Among the Thugs is so strong. I really thought that the majority of the book was going to be focused around this time working all of the undesirable positions in a high end kitchen, and though I'm glad that it wasn't, I do wish there was more of it. I think the high-speed and sometimes toxic culture of the culinary world, as well as the passion and love that a lot of people start their careers with is really well expressed here.
It's unfortunate in hindsight that Buford's sage for this adventure ended up being Mario Batali. All of the descriptions of his growth in the scene and as a cook are eroded by what we now know to be true. Sadly though, there are even scenes here that make you do a double take, and wonder how Buford doesn't rebuke him, or at least openly question his behavior in a way that doesn't amount to a shrug and a "That's Mario for ya, what a crazy guy huh?". Mario doesn't completely escape the book without being chastised to some extent, especially by those who mentored him in Italy, but these rebukes are more about how he exploited what he learned in these small communities to make himself famous. If nothing else, Heat made me see Mario as not only the lecherous, slimy person that I knew him to be beforehand, but also to some degree a professional fraud, though I'm really not sure how much of that was intended by Buford. All of this goes a huge way to tainting and dating the book.
Buford also has a habit of poorly structured narratives, and unfortunately this is carried over here. It's quite simply a mess at times, and his writing is not nearly as strong when it comes to culinary history. Especially towards the middle it feels unfocused and lost. I do love his insight into the power of ungodly amounts of repetition, how doing is the best teacher given enough attempts. I wish more time had been given to discuss the vital role that immigrants play in kitchens, felt like that thread was pretty neatly ignored in favor of less important or interesting items.
Buford finishes with some comments about how the global economy and economics have supported a system in which the consumer is able to demand whatever food they want, whenever and wherever they want it. To provide it, we have lost the fine grain detail of producers that intimately know their products, who have passion for them, who can provide the best possible quality. Buford is pretty brazen about saying that he doesn't have any arguments against 'global market economics', except with respect to food. I think this view is more than a little shortsighted. I'm confident that if Buford were to do a similar multiyear deep dive into other consumer goods, he'd find that unchecked capitalism has 'ruined' them much like it has with food.
Heat didn't come together in the same way that Among the Thugs did for me. Though I enjoyed most of it I can't see myself recommending it, if only because of how big a role Mario plays.
Buford's writing (and subsequently the book itself) is at it's best when he describes his time at Babbo. There's something about his sarcastic style that is really suited to intense, stressful, and personal moments, no doubt one of the reasons why Among the Thugs is so strong. I really thought that the majority of the book was going to be focused around this time working all of the undesirable positions in a high end kitchen, and though I'm glad that it wasn't, I do wish there was more of it. I think the high-speed and sometimes toxic culture of the culinary world, as well as the passion and love that a lot of people start their careers with is really well expressed here.
It's unfortunate in hindsight that Buford's sage for this adventure ended up being Mario Batali. All of the descriptions of his growth in the scene and as a cook are eroded by what we now know to be true. Sadly though, there are even scenes here that make you do a double take, and wonder how Buford doesn't rebuke him, or at least openly question his behavior in a way that doesn't amount to a shrug and a "That's Mario for ya, what a crazy guy huh?". Mario doesn't completely escape the book without being chastised to some extent, especially by those who mentored him in Italy, but these rebukes are more about how he exploited what he learned in these small communities to make himself famous. If nothing else, Heat made me see Mario as not only the lecherous, slimy person that I knew him to be beforehand, but also to some degree a professional fraud, though I'm really not sure how much of that was intended by Buford. All of this goes a huge way to tainting and dating the book.
Buford also has a habit of poorly structured narratives, and unfortunately this is carried over here. It's quite simply a mess at times, and his writing is not nearly as strong when it comes to culinary history. Especially towards the middle it feels unfocused and lost. I do love his insight into the power of ungodly amounts of repetition, how doing is the best teacher given enough attempts. I wish more time had been given to discuss the vital role that immigrants play in kitchens, felt like that thread was pretty neatly ignored in favor of less important or interesting items.
Buford finishes with some comments about how the global economy and economics have supported a system in which the consumer is able to demand whatever food they want, whenever and wherever they want it. To provide it, we have lost the fine grain detail of producers that intimately know their products, who have passion for them, who can provide the best possible quality. Buford is pretty brazen about saying that he doesn't have any arguments against 'global market economics', except with respect to food. I think this view is more than a little shortsighted. I'm confident that if Buford were to do a similar multiyear deep dive into other consumer goods, he'd find that unchecked capitalism has 'ruined' them much like it has with food.
Heat didn't come together in the same way that Among the Thugs did for me. Though I enjoyed most of it I can't see myself recommending it, if only because of how big a role Mario plays.
loathed: the author's use of the word "slave"
loved: the rest
loved: the rest
"Bill Buford likes to surround himself with histrionic people, whose antics frequently cross the line into violence. First, it was the soccer hooligans. Now it's three-star NY chef Mario Batali and Italian butcher Dario Cecchini. You can imagine Buford and Batali, into their fifth bottle of wine in a dim New York hot spot at three in the morning, Buford regaling the imbecilic escapades of the Man United fans in the eighties, and Batali savoring (and interrupting) every detail. Not content with his job as New Yorker fiction editor, Buford abandons his day job to be a kitchen slave in Babbo and later an apprentice to a pasta maker and a butcher in Italy. An excellent read for foodies. Selected quotes:
Chicken feet are a vivid sight--like human hands without a thumb, curled up and knuckly--and the first time I saw them, bobbing in their giant vat, they looked as though they were attached to the arms of so many people, clawing at the churning water; trying to climb out, the bubbling pot a portal from Hell, there in the back of the kitchen, against the wall, the hottest place.
The burden was in the fact that the polenta was never made first thing. It was always the seventh or eighth thing. So if you got busy and forgot--if suddenly, at four-thirty, you found yourself saying, \""Oh shit, the polenta!\""--you were in trouble. You can't crush three hours of slow cooking into sixty minutes. For emergencies, a box of the instant was hidden on the top shelf of the walk-in, but to use it was considered a failure of character. It also rendered Frankie apoplectic, who took these lapses as personal slights. \""You're doing this to humiliate me,\"" he'd say to whoever he'd just spotted, tiptoeing like a shoplifter, clandestinely slinking off with a box of the instant an hour before the service started. \""You're doing this to make me look bad. You're doing this because you know we will fucking lose our fucking three stars if we start serving fucking instant, and if we lose our fucking three stars I lose my fucking job.\""
One busy Saturday, Dario was serving a woman about to purchase her first bistecca who then asked him if the meat was good. \""E\buona?\"" Dario said, his voice rising theatrically with exaggerated indignation. \""Non lo so. Proviano\"" (I don't know--let's find out.) So he took a bite--the woman's raw purchase--chewed it melodramatically, swallowed, said, \""Yes, it's good,\"" wrapped it up, and gave the woman her change. The woman, aghast, took her package and fled. The consequence was that several people asked Dario if he would take a bite out of their steaks as well-as though his teeth marks were an autograph. \""Please,\"" one man said, \""it's for my wife.\"""""
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
relaxing
fast-paced
Bill Buford writes like a barkeeper with a Ivy League English degree: evocate and precise while being honest and gritty. This is his style, and it works especially well with cooking, which is in many senses analogous. Buford's style and his ability to illuminate season this work, and the characters in it area alive and real. The descriptions of food are also vivid, especially the ones that involve grisly bits or flesh. I appreciate the broad range of this work, and found it to move smoothly between lively restaurant scenes and contemplative reflections on the philosophy and history of food. The latter at times can be lengthy and indulgent, but they do not largely alter the reading experience. This book has a veritable stock of antecdoes and lessons on cooking and the restaurant world. Here are a few of the more memorable ones:
-Cooking can be deeply intimate and sexual, in part due to the encompassing heat and intensity of the kitchen.
-The difference between restaurant and home cooking is consistency-restaurants must be consistent.
-Even the best restaurant kitchens fade during the evening hours, especially near the end of the day. This is also true of pasta water, which is used throughout the day and is therefore grimy by close.
-Feeling, literally with the fingers, is a critical diagnostic, especially with meat.
-Cooking is of a place, but also of a time.
-Some chefs are artisans, others are businessmen.
-Tradition is hard to find - even places that seem traditional are often not, and the pursuit of uncorrupted tradition is a battle against the clock.
-Good cooking takes practice, and time. Having a good teacher helps.
-The idea of small food-this is his concluding theory but I don't find it that hepful.
-The scale of food is huge, and impressive.
-Reviews matter a lot for high-scale restaurants, especially in NYC where the Times is the only highbrow paper.
-Pig is simple, cow is hard.
-There's an extensive history of food literature.
-The best meat is often found in places with simpler economies, because the link between human and animal is closer.
Overall, this was a wonderful read and one that made me want to cook and return to Italy.
-Cooking can be deeply intimate and sexual, in part due to the encompassing heat and intensity of the kitchen.
-The difference between restaurant and home cooking is consistency-restaurants must be consistent.
-Even the best restaurant kitchens fade during the evening hours, especially near the end of the day. This is also true of pasta water, which is used throughout the day and is therefore grimy by close.
-Feeling, literally with the fingers, is a critical diagnostic, especially with meat.
-Cooking is of a place, but also of a time.
-Some chefs are artisans, others are businessmen.
-Tradition is hard to find - even places that seem traditional are often not, and the pursuit of uncorrupted tradition is a battle against the clock.
-Good cooking takes practice, and time. Having a good teacher helps.
-The idea of small food-this is his concluding theory but I don't find it that hepful.
-The scale of food is huge, and impressive.
-Reviews matter a lot for high-scale restaurants, especially in NYC where the Times is the only highbrow paper.
-Pig is simple, cow is hard.
-There's an extensive history of food literature.
-The best meat is often found in places with simpler economies, because the link between human and animal is closer.
Overall, this was a wonderful read and one that made me want to cook and return to Italy.
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced