August 12, 2015

Book 38: Kitchen Confidential

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
Anthony Bourdain

I've enjoyed Anthony Bourdain's somewhat cynical take on the celebrity chef phenomenon- of which, make no mistake, he is a significant beneficiary- and decided that I might as well pick up a copy of the memoir that started it all for him (in an updated edition). In one sense, the book offers everything you might expect from Bourdain: filthy language, a bone-dry sense of humor, and frank assessments of himself, his coworkers, and the culinary industry. It is, however, a bit less successful as an exposé and a memoir. The former can, perhaps, be chalked up to time, especially as the pronouncements in the most prominent gross-out chapter, "From Our Kitchen to Your Table", have become common knowledge by this point. Many of Bourdain's big reveals simply don't stand the test of time; ironically, this is largely the case because of the book's success and subsequent impact on the culinary world. Thus, the memoir's tell-all aspects of Kitchen Confidential are more important within the context of the book's publication rather than they are on their own for contemporary readers. There is, of course, more behind the curtain than is generally known, but the book's shock factor, a significant part of its initial appeal, has largely diminished over time.

Bourdain, however, can hardly be blamed for this, and the book is, at its core, a memoir as well as an insider's view of the culinary industry. Here too, however, the book ultimately gets the better of itself. Bits and pieces of Bourdain's history are sprinkled throughout the narrative and his larger proclamations about the industry, and while the chapters are well integrated with one another the overall chronology often gets blurred, causing the book to essentially fail as a coherent narrative of Bourdain's time in the culinary industry. It is not Bourdain's use of techniques such as foreshadowing and callbacks that sink the ship, but rather the order in which information is generally presented: despite reading small snippets here and there, readers leave with no clue how to fit the events of the "Bigfoot" chapter into the general narrative. The chapter itself is well-written, engaging, and memorable for its depiction of a ruthless character who set the tone for much of Bourdain's subsequent life (even if the reader can't quite figure out when this occurred). That the author's redemption from the depravities of addiction is not placed in any sort of temporal context is frustrating and makes his turnaround far less impressive, or indeed engaging, as it would be within the proper context. This is a shame, as I'm sure that, given his general propensity to call it like it is and his exquisitely tuned bullshit detector, Bourdain could have provided a refreshingly honest, frank story of addiction and recovery. But that story, for whatever reasons, disappears below the surface as the book's now-dated (and therefore currently less interesting) exposé elements take center stage.

Likewise, Bourdain is more prone to proclaim his passion for cooking than to actually illustrate it; while there is no doubt in my mind that food is, and has long been, the driving force in Bourdain's life, that fact tends to get lost amid his gleeful descent into the grimy underworld that exists beneath even some of the most highly regarded restaurants. This is all the more disappointing given Bourdain's excellent ear for language and his hilarious, seemingly honest characterizations of himself and his various coworkers. He recounts numerous criminal and otherwise questionable activities with glee and pulls no punches whatsoever about the grimy underworld that lies beneath the shimmering surface of even some of the most highly rated restaurants. That said, and however fun it can be to recognize that chefs are some of the most foul-mouthed and dirty-minded members of society, Bourdain's attitude toward sexual harassment occasionally led me to set the book down in disgust. Though Bourdain pays lip service to the dangers of sexism, even going so far as to praise the women (and, less often, the men) who survive and thrive in such a caustic environment, his implicit acceptance of the status quo as a situation that the weak-minded should just be expected to deal with is problematic, to say the least. In riding the fine line between praising the culture and criticizing it, Bourdain falls on the wrong side on too many occasions.

For all of its faults, however, the book retains a certain kind of rough-around-the-edges appeal, and it certainly exhibits the take-no-prisoners attitude one expects of Bourdain. Kitchen Confidential may suffer from the effects of aging and missed opportunities to craft a compelling narrative, but it retains enough of Bourdain's trademark cynicism that it should please his fans when taken with a significant grain of salt.


Grade: B

No comments: