Online discussion (& meetup) for 'Heat' by B. Buford

As you will see in the Poll below in Other Culinary Chat section, Ann and I have decided to go ahead with the combo of online discussion and meeting in person for a book group. Hopefully in the next week or so we'll find a time/date/place to meet in person (which will be about a month from now). Also, see the poll post in order to look at the list of the other books we've chosen, that we will discuss over the next 5 months.

Anyone want to start the discussion? Personally, I'm impressed with the fact that he set aside his job and regular life in order to be a peon in a high-end kitchen. Sometimes it's nice to live vicariously, wondering what would happen if I walked out of my job in order to slice vegetables all day.... I also like his style of writing, crisp, clear, and with enough attention to detail that you feel like you're in the kitchen with him.

Other thoughts so far?

messycook wrote:Personally, I'm impressed with the fact that he set aside his job and regular life in order to be a peon in a high-end kitchen.

I'm not so impressed as I am jealous, frankly. Though one never knows for certain what one would do in the circumstances, I for one would seriously consider do the same thing if I had the income he apparently does. My recollection is that, early on, he makes reference to his wife's high income, the implication being (among other things) that her continuing to work and earn a high income made it feasible to do this.

We could not afford to pay the mortgage if I tried what Buford did. I also couldn't look ahead to writing either articles or a book, as he did, to recoup some of that lost income--I ain't the writer he is. Indeed, if I could afford to take a few years off, there are a number of things I'd be tickled to try. Tony Bourdain's travels also intrigue me.

Back to the book though: I agree he's a good writer...you do get a sense of being there. I'm somewhat less impressed by Batali than I was when I started the book, and one does have to wonder about the common sense of someone who becomes so intent (and intense) on the subject of butchering that he buys his own carcass and shleps it home, up the elevator. Sorry, but as well written as it all was, I begin to think he's lost a little sense of balance.

Still, the book was better than I anticipated and I enjoyed reading it. I'll be very curious to know what others felt.

I enjoyed Heat quite a lot.

At lunch a few weeks ago, Condiment Queen and justjoan laughed derisively when I said that I hadn't noticed an overt "sexist" attitude in Batali's kitchen. I did, however, quite definitely detect that the "culture" (if that's the right word) was predominantly male -- mostly males in the kitchen, and a distinctly phallo-centric form of dialogue that could make a Tuscan blush. And after the ladies slammed me, I did recall that in Batali’s kitchen, broccoli rabe was refered to as “rape” and that the B-cup was used as a form of measurement (“cause we all know the size of a B-cup, right?”) -- I can see how that could be interpreted as a potentially hostile work environment, I guess.

On the subject of the kitchen atmosphere, I was amused by Buford's observations about how, when he first starting working at Babbo, people were constantly "bumping" into him -- allegedly because he was the new guy and others had to put him in his place/claim their territory. I worked in a restaurant only once (Steven's Steakhouse during the Summer of Love), and it was the only place I've worked where a fight actually broke out – as it turned out, between head cook and one of the waiters. I can't remember what it was about, but I do remember that it was like two dogs barking and snapping at each other. There's a lot of heat in kitchens.

Haven't read Heat -- I'm hoping to pick it up cheap somewhere -- but the attitude reported above is echoed in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential and The Nasty Bits multiple times: it's not that a woman isn't welcome in the kitchen, but she'd better be able to dish out and take the kind of "hostile work environment" that can happen with a room of close-quartered, tattooed, thugs.

JoelF wrote:Haven't read Heat -- I'm hoping to pick it up cheap somewhere --

Amazon for $11:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1400041201/sr=8-2/qid=1172539622/ref=pd_bbs_olp_2/002-7528906-2348845?ie=UTF8&s=books

I have some opinions on Heat that I'd like to get to eventually, but the topic of women in kitchens has cropped up twice recently(once before on the professional board). While I'd like to take the opportunity to explicate further, suffice it to say a close friend, now a personal chef to the high and mighty, did her externships at such vaunted palaces of cuisine as Chez Panisse and The French Laundry(Grant Achatz was an underling at the time...and boy is she bemused at what's become of sir). Anyway...she "sold out" as she puts it(and I guess it's a common observation in the chef trade) by going the personal route. What she offers, encapsulating her post-CIA training, is a litany of horrors, not so much of a hostile work environment(it *is* that...for everyone regardless), but one which is designed to physically-degrade the female body. She's been through so many foot surgeries, etc...

It's not merely heat(or Heat), per se, or the language of men, but the burns, and scars, and sheer drudgery of the professional kitchen: here my friend opines that women just aren't built for it...those who perservere are to be respected...perhaps held in awe(that's a *tad* pedantic, I know).

i found heat and even more so, kitchen confidential, to be accurate in their portrayal of life in general inside a professional kitchen. it's demanding on all bodies, both male and female. add hot and sharp into the mix w/pretty consistent high pressure and i'm surprised more doesn't occur that would shock the civilians.

i've seen quite a bit. i've been responsible for quite a bit as well. there's a boys club for sure, but then there's more like a veteran of war type thing as well. comrades in arms. it's a war. every nite a battle. everyone has to be able to take it. not just women, and yes they do have to be able to take it to survive. regardless of sex, a busy pro kitchen is not a place for a meek wilting flower or the faint of heart in any way shape or form.

you'll get burned, you'll get cut, you'll get pushed, you'll get challenged, you'll get ambushed, you'll get pimped, you'll get angry, you'll preform more tasks meticulously in a short amount of time than you do anywhere else in your life, you'll laugh a lot, swear a lot and then do it all again tomorrow. it gets in your system and if you can relate and hang tough, you miss it when you're not around it.

i've got a guy that works for me in portland that's great w/the presentation. an artist on a plate. really gifted. that distinction has earned him the nickname "princess". one evening he inadvertently dropped a bud on the bar, slipped out of his pocket i suppose. of course i had to chastise him and go through the motions of reprimanding him, but the guy is great. so now his name is "princess mota". now, if you think that's wrong, then i'd say you'd have a problem w/about 75% of the kitchens today.

back in the 80's @ the east bank club when i became le saucier, i was "sauceboy". i'd do 20-30 different ones a day from 1/2 pint to 5 gals as needed. today it would most likely be saucebitch or biatch, but those were different times. nowadays, they just call me chef.

Just ordered the book. Looking forward to catching up with y'all.

-ramon

Gypsy boy wrote: "I'm not so impressed as I am jealous, frankly. Though one never knows for certain what one would do in the circumstances, I for one would seriously consider do the same thing if I had the income he apparently does."

I agree - it is more jealousy than anything. Though I guess I would pick cooking all day and not line cooking.

GB also wrote: "I'm somewhat less impressed by Batali than I was when I started the book, and one does have to wonder about the common sense of someone who becomes so intent (and intense) on the subject of butchering that he buys his own carcass and shleps it home, up the elevator."

I also agree with this - Batali became pretty insane to me as the stories went on....and dragging a carcass (was it pig?) into a Manhattan apartment seems a little ridiculous to me....just too over the top.

Another thing that was over the top was when he sliced part of his finger off and another cook made him continue to use the wounded digit to check the done-ness of meat. Not much makes me queasy, but that excerpt sure did. Not only because of the pain but the person who would eat the steak with human blood seared into the middle of it

I'll share my earlier post on this book below.
I think this book is a perfect read for a cold winter night. Buford's passion exudes heat. I agree with messycook, at times the characters' passions are extreme to the point of absurd (especially the carcass story).

I have a vivid imagination and after reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in high school, I have put meat on the back burner. Heat did not turn me back into a meat lover. The detailed stories made me quesy at times too, but I loved Buford's writing.


Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:26 am Post subject:

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I just finished Heat last week and I think those of you with passion for food and drink (you all fit the bill) might enjoy this book. Staff writer for The New Yorker, Bill Buford sees himself as a “comfortable cook” and he volunteers to become Mario Batali’s “slave”. This adventure leads to other apprenticeships with some of Italy’s masters. It is each master’s passion and Buford’s vivid descriptions of these characters that make this book such a feast for the senses.

Buford travels to Italy to learn pasta making from some pizzeria owners in Porretta and he becomes obsessed with his quest to discover when cooks started adding eggs to pasta dough. He searches cookbooks back to the 1,500s in pursuit of the first “eggy recipe.”

He shares part of his pasta lesson as he makes “angelically yummy munchkin food” (tortellini): “You next tip the top part of the triangle forward, as though it were bowing in an expression of gratitude, and then (the crucial step) pull the other two corners forward, as though securing the bowing had in a headlock. You then press it all together to form a ring. When you turn the pasta over, you’ll be astonished by what you created; a belly button. (What can I say? It’s wildly erotic.)”

My favorite part of the book is when Buford becomes an apprentice in Dario Cecchini’s butcher shop in Panzano in Chianti. The butcher has his own way with words, “A butcher never sleeps. A butcher works in meat during the day and plays in flesh at night. A true butcher is a disciple of carnality.” The lively discussions about wine, oil and cows encourage a renewed appreciation of food.

There are so many wonderful passages and I’ll leave you with one more:
“Enrico’s olive oil, I can testify, is very good, but there are a lot of good olive oils, made by other nutty earth artists with no interest in money, obsessed with smell, looking over their shoulders to make sure they’re the first on their mountain to pick their greenly pungent unripe olives, squeezing the tiniest amount of intense juice from their oldest trees. The viscous, gold-green liquid that dribbles out from their stone-like fruit is unlike any other oil I have tasted, and the madders chauvinistically boast that none of it leaves Italy.”

David Hammond wrote:

JoelF wrote:Haven't read Heat -- I'm hoping to pick it up cheap somewhere --

Amazon for $11:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1400041201/sr=8-2/qid=1172539622/ref=pd_bbs_olp_2/002-7528906-2348845?ie=UTF8&s=books

Even cheaper: my local library has it. Maybe yours does too.

Katie wrote:

David Hammond wrote:

JoelF wrote:Haven't read Heat -- I'm hoping to pick it up cheap somewhere --

Amazon for $11:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1400041201/sr=8-2/qid=1172539622/ref=pd_bbs_olp_2/002-7528906-2348845?ie=UTF8&s=books

Even cheaper: my local library has it. Maybe yours does too.

Yes, I didn't buy a copy. The Oak Park Library has print and audio book versions.

I just got the book from my local library a couple of days ago, so I'm resisting the temptation to scroll down and read other people's comments about it, until I can get at least partway into it over the next few days. I hope you haven't finished talking about it and moved on already? Or set a place to meet ... or met already?

Maybe there should be some sort of schedule, to talk about no more than one book a month, so that some of us wouldn't feel like we can never catch up with the discussion?

Guess I will have to read the other posts to see if you've all talked about these things already.

We are still talking about the book - seems like there was a flurry of activity and then it died down a bit - but please feel free to chime in and continue! We have not set a meet up date yet, but will post about it as soon as we do.
The plan is to only talk about one book at a time, for about a month each.

Hopefully as we learn more the whole process will be more streamlined. Suggesstions welcome!

It can be hard to comment without giving away the plot .

I got the book last night and am now starting the second chapter of the line cook portion. The kitchen krap doesn't faze me but the Mario anecdotes are gems. There is just enough detail to convey that what is narrated is real. One of the quotes from Lidia made me blush.

-ramon

I recieved Heat and The Nasty Bits as a Christmas gift, and finished up recently with Kitchen Confidential.

Last year I went on a Ruth Reichl kick, preceded by a Calvin Trillin kick.

I've come to the conclusion that I enjoy reading about food from the perspective of an eater, rather than from a professional chef. It's not that I'm squeamish - I've worked in a kitchen, and in a restaurant, and for that matter as a stagehand for musical events, which make the backstage of restaurants look like kiddie shows.

I find that chefs tend to write about the schlepping and the people and the us-against-them, and while I completely understand the total dedication it takes, I want to read more about the FOOD, rather than the process.

My 2 cents.

I'm posting a poll--or maybe a series of polls, over on the events board so we can start coming up a meeting time and place. I'll come back here and edit with the link when it--or they--are up.

Mhays wrote:I recieved Heat and The Nasty Bits as a Christmas gift, and finished up recently with Kitchen Confidential.
...
I've come to the conclusion that I enjoy reading about food from the perspective of an eater, rather than from a professional chef.
...
I find that chefs tend to write about the schlepping and the people and the us-against-them, and while I completely understand the total dedication it takes, I want to read more about the FOOD, rather than the process.

I'm mostly through with The Nasty Bits and I think Bourdain does an admirable job focusing on the food. I'm thinking specifically of the chapters on the sushi dinner at Masa and the one about the basic joys of eating in Vietnam.

I guess he has pieces that are more focus processed, but those two chapters specifically struck me for their degree of detail. I honestly considered (for two seconds at the most) booking a meal at Masa I don't suppose I could get the sommelier from Per Se to come along, though, so why bother?

And then... isn't Heat a lot about the process? And Buford isn't a professional chef!

But I see your more general point, for sure...

If you're interested in a "real world" discussion of Heat, go here to help us pick a date.

It's not that I didn't enjoy the books at all: I did - and of the three, I think The Nasty Bits was my favorite. I did enjoy the Italian grandmother parts of Heat. Just a broad generalization of my preferences - I mean, most of my favorite posters here - where I really go to get the food reading itch scratched- aren't involved in a restaurant at all, right?

I suppose one thing that aggravates me is the supposition that there's a "right" way to cook - for instance, Batali's insistance that all french cuisine is (expletive deleted.) and that only Italians dictate their choices by quality ingredients, etc. Bourdain, also, has a distain for certain food philosophies (many of which I agree with, but...)

However, none of these three books had me running for the kitchen, while, after reading Tender at the Bone, I immediately ran out for matzos and eggs. I really don't have the money to eat at the higher-end places, so I'm in it to learn what I can do for myself - and I look for that in food nonfiction. The truth is, though I particulary enjoy a good food essay, I've been known to take an afternoon with a new cookbook freebasing recipes and looking at pictures...

I must admit I finished the book with much less interest then when I started. I was sick of these crude people. I understand foods visceral side but without poetry we're nothing but animals eating other animals.

-ramon

Ramon wrote:I was sick of these crude people. I understand foods visceral side but without poetry we're nothing but animals eating other animals.-ramon

When you say "crude people," the first character I thought of was Dario, the Tuscan butcher...the one who weepingly spouts endless stanze of Dante, probably both the crudest (most carnal) and most poetic soul in the book.

Was the author crude? Not really.

Batali? Si, molto crudo...but was that who you meant?

crude people are an ever present reality in the restaurant business. i know i am. as are the witty artists and hard working team players. the reason it's written about so often is that it's just common fact and a given for most of us in the business. a fairly humorous escape valve in times of warlike stress that's repeated on a daily/nightly basis. i wouldn't have it any other way.

Hey, I've spent sometime (not a lot admittedly) in commercial kitchens. I've played lead guitar in a band with a name so unspeakable I would not repeat it in polite company. I've been slowly working on a book regarding the Korean war battle at the Chosin Resevoir, where our marines were completely surrounded by ruthless, garlic-stinking Chinese. I have no problems with crude per se.

The book just left me with a feeling that I didn't really want to know any of these people. I think that is a reflection of the writer's failure to show the art beyond the crudity or crudite.

I've never felt the same way reading Bourdain. I've always felt that Tony's attitude masked a sensitive soul, and I think he makes that apparent. I just didn't get this with Buford. Mario is one of his best friends, right? Why?

-ramon

it must be the writers style then and how you respond to it. some can grab you by the throat and pique your interest with funny, interesting or meaningful stories and characters, and some don't.

tony is a great writer and a great guy, besides a seasoned chef. you'd no doubt like him if you met him. no idea what buford is about besides being a motivated wannabe food groupie that had the luxury of checking out his passion for awhile. i doubt he's a line cook today. put his toe in the water, or maybe his ankle, but never would be accused of immersing himself in the lifestyle, hence the different perspective. both valid. one i can relate to more than the other, but that's me and my world. not you and yours.

It's interesting to me that Buford's well known for his other book "Among the Thugs" about football hooligans and crowd violence (I admit, I didn't read it - I attended the performance of the play at the Next Theater some years ago) He dipped a toe into that behavior, as well. I think he's looking at the world through grit* colored glasses.

*or it rhymes with grit.

I’ll tell you where Buford finally lost me.

In chapter 24, in NYC, Buford buys a “225 pound pig “at the “green market” packaged in a “transparent sheet.” He notes that a woman, with “arms crossed”, gives him a look of “open disapproval” in front of the “organic wheatgrass stand.”

He transports the carcass, along with his wife on a “scooter.” With the help of his doorman, he wrestles the mass into the elevator where he encounters the “Wall Street banker” who “exited with unusual speed” and made a “sound.” For this, Buford whines, “… I was sure getting a lot of shit for it.”

There’s something extremely incongruous here.

-ramon

it's not unheard of to embellish a story. although in my life i've found that the truth has been stranger than any fiction i could make up. even when i describe something word for word as it happened, people think it's bs. we have a little saying around here. "it's not bs if it's true."

I think the point is that many of us would gladly carry a pig upstairs to learn to butcher it - and not complain about the staring, because, for god's sake, you're carrying a dead pig upstairs!

I'm with Ramon, in that I've worked in both commercial kitchens and in the arts, (I was once a stagehand for a rock and country music series) and while I understand that there's a seamy underbelly, it's not by any means the whole story.

it seems to me that he was observing and reporting others reactions. not complaining. carry a dead pig over your shoulder past an organic wheatgrass stand onto a scooter and into your upper east side elevator and you're bound to get a reaction. irony, contempt, etc...

i've been involved in the arts my entire life. then i got into food 25 yrs ago. i can say w/no uncertainty, the seemingly dark or irreverent viewpoint that tony bourdain or myself describe really is the norm in the vast majority of kitchens and for that matter also in the jazz/rock/r&b music scenes, or film or theater and dance, all of which i've been intimately involved in. all due respect, not sticking my toe in. engulfed.

personally, one of the reasons i felt so comfortable branching into food from music is that they're so similar in so many ways (hence "jazzfood"). artists often can be that way. often what civilians debate or find outrage in, we accept as natural and go on about our business of creating in our rarified air (which is not meant to sound snobish).

just trying to give some perspective from that side of things. good and bad.