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A review by wmhenrymorris
The Soul of a Chef: The Journey Toward Perfection by Michael Ruhlman
That Ruhlman later writes books with two of the three chefs profiled in this book and appears to be friends with the third shouldn't diminish the fact that he does say some interesting things about, well, the souls of chefs. You gotta get close to the subjects in order to get the material that he does.
On the other hand, those with allergic reactions to Thomas Keller deification should probably skip this book.
And Ruhlman never quite fully interrogates the deeper aesthetic underpinnings to his concepts of soulfulness and perfection.
But many of the details and anecdotes are fantastic and some of the food descriptions -- and even more so the descriptions about how the food is created -- are quite lovely.
And really, for all the hype, Keller is a fascinating example of craftsmanship and the few pages where Ruhlman gets in to an analysis over whether Keller's food is in some way ironic (and what that then means for American cooking) prove that he is capable of interesting, even trenchant cultural criticism.
On the other hand, those with allergic reactions to Thomas Keller deification should probably skip this book.
And Ruhlman never quite fully interrogates the deeper aesthetic underpinnings to his concepts of soulfulness and perfection.
But many of the details and anecdotes are fantastic and some of the food descriptions -- and even more so the descriptions about how the food is created -- are quite lovely.
And really, for all the hype, Keller is a fascinating example of craftsmanship and the few pages where Ruhlman gets in to an analysis over whether Keller's food is in some way ironic (and what that then means for American cooking) prove that he is capable of interesting, even trenchant cultural criticism.