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A review by bergsteiger
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Updated Edition) by Anthony Bourdain
4.0
When a friend lent me this book I was skeptical. A book about the cooking industry? Boring. But out of respect I read it and have to say I was pleasantly surprised.
Bourdain is the Edward Abbey of describing food. Like Abbey's vivid descriptions of the seemingly bland desert, Bourdain takes foods you don't normally think about in any great detail and gives it a sensory quality that makes you want to go out and try some right now.
He also possesses a cynical, self-deprecating humor that leads us through both his early years as a chef and the industry as he experienced it in the 70s, 80s and 90s in Provincetown and New York. He conveys the experience well, so that an "outsider" can understand and appreciate what the industry was like in that time and place.
It is a little unpolished at times and often disjointed, keeping it out of 5 star territory, but it is a great read. I tried to start his second book and got about halfway through, but the authenticity was lacking (as was any clear plot line) and the disjointedness was even more jarring, but this first book is a keeper. Solid 4 stars.
Bourdain is the Edward Abbey of describing food. Like Abbey's vivid descriptions of the seemingly bland desert, Bourdain takes foods you don't normally think about in any great detail and gives it a sensory quality that makes you want to go out and try some right now.
He also possesses a cynical, self-deprecating humor that leads us through both his early years as a chef and the industry as he experienced it in the 70s, 80s and 90s in Provincetown and New York. He conveys the experience well, so that an "outsider" can understand and appreciate what the industry was like in that time and place.
It is a little unpolished at times and often disjointed, keeping it out of 5 star territory, but it is a great read. I tried to start his second book and got about halfway through, but the authenticity was lacking (as was any clear plot line) and the disjointedness was even more jarring, but this first book is a keeper. Solid 4 stars.