Customer Reviews

How I Learned To Cook: Culinary Educations from the World's Greatest Chefs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

`How I Learned to Cook' collected and edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan is simply a Part II of `Don't Try This At Home' edited by Witherspoon and culinary literary collaborator, Andrew Friedman in the place of Meehan. If the books were movies, they would probably be considered `exploitation' flicks, working off the interest in Tony Bourdain's `Kitchen Confidential' and a host of other culinary memoirs.

Not only is there less difference between the books than is suggested by the titles, this second volume shares most of the quirks and slight misrepresentations of the original volume. The following quote from my review of the first volume is exactly true of this new effort:

"Two things which are misleading from the title are the fact that some of the contributors are not among `The World's Greatest Chefs' (from the subtitle at the top of the page) and many of the incidents recounted in the book are less about cooking per se than about relations between people in the kitchen, between the kitchen and management, and between the kitchen (back of the house) and the wait staff (front of the house)."

We even have a very similar list of contributors, giving us the notion that the material for the two books was collected at the same time, and this second volume is `leftovers'. This is slightly misleading, as I believe the quality of the material in the two books is roughly the same. Note that while several of the contributors such as Mark Bittman, Anthony Bourdain, Marcella Hazan and Tamasin Day-Lewis are not among `the world's greatest chefs', they ARE among the world's most articulate culinary writers! In fact, the party line on Bourdain is that he is actually a much better writer than he is a chef (Witness his self-confessed cheating at the CIA when he sneaked bouillon cubes into his stock making classes).
That is not to say we don't have a fair serving of true 'worlds greatest chefs' such as Ferran Adria, Mario Batali, Rick Bayless, Daniel Boulud, Tom Colicchio, Pierre Herme, Michel Richard, Eric Rippert, and Norm Van Aken.

Some of the lessons in these essays may be accidental. For example, Mark Bittman's piece says practically nothing about how he learned how to cook, but it speaks volumes about the difference between someone who writes about cooking and a professional cook. I can imagine that if a talented chef such as Tom Colicchio were put into Bittman's position of discovering they had to cook for a party of eight with four hours to go, Colicchio would have handled it in a walk, without even breaking a sweat.

The level of true culinary information is also, like the earlier volume, pretty slim. One group of `accidental' lessons is the extent to which those two great teachers, Julia Child and Madeleine Kamman were respected by their counterparts among the up and coming ranks of professional chefs. It also gives a small glimpse into the differences between the unflappable Child and the sometimes petulant Kamman.

A third type of lesson is some insights into the vast difference between the qualities of two different kitchens with roughly equal reputations. One example reveals how horrible it was for a Chez Panisse alum to find themselves staging at a Michelin two star restaurant which practiced sanitation poorer than a second rate Jersey diner. One would like to think this kind of thing reported so graphically by George Orwell in `Down and Out in London and Paris' had disappeared with the advent of the Michelin guides and their copiers, but apparently it has not.

My final verdict on the first volume is the same as my findings on this one. To wit:

"In many ways, this book is the culinary version of `The world's funniest pets'. It's a guilty pleasure which may contribute to your understanding of human nature, but it is not likely to help your cooking one wit. The greatest impression I get from the book is the difference between the professional culinary workplace and the kind of technical, research oriented business office with which I am familiar. ... I do get the sense from this and other sources that the professional kitchen is a human pressure cooker where tempers get as hot as the sautéed sole, about as often as that fish may be ordered.

Thus, I found this book remarkably entertaining and informative, but not for the reasons you may gather from the cover or the editors' introduction. If you liked `Kitchen Confidential', you will certainly like this book." On the other hand, if you are really interested primarily in culinary education, invest in Child's 'Mastering the Ard of French Cooking' or Kamman's 'The New Education of a Chef'!

I'm actually enjoying this collection of anecdotes more than I did "Don't Try This at Home" -- this is more down-to-earth and not as outrageous as the stories gathered in the first book. An excellent keep-in-the-car book for when you have five or ten minutes to kill, you can knock off a couple more chapters. This would make a great gift for someone who likes to cook or who likes to eat, and who doesn't like to eat?!

Next to eating and cooking, one of my favorite activities is reading about food. And in the last decade or so, there has been a plethora of choices now available to Americans -- cookbooks are one of the biggest selling sectors of the publishing world, the cult of the celebrity chef is booming, and the megamarts are swarming with new and exotic foods from around the world. Along with that, the American palate has been becoming more cosmopolitan and discerning, all of this adding up a nearly insatisable demand for knowledge and interest in the art of cuisine.

One aspect that I've really gotten to enjoy about life in the middle of food are the various accounts written by various chefs in the trade. There's something to be learned in these personal stories of culinary discoveries, failures and triumphs.

Edited by Kimberly Witherspoon and Peter Meehan, this includes more than forty stories, most of which are painfully funny, thoughtful, downright bawdy, and full of insights into what makes a chef. My favorites among the stories were those from:

Anthony Bourdain -- about the horrors to be found while shilling his book across the country. Terrificly funny, and downright rude in spots. I thought he was the most foul-mouthed chef around, until I heard Gordon Ramsey in a couple of his television programs.

Masaharu Morimoto -- this popular Iron Chef reveals that he had another passion besides food, namely baseball, and very nearly became a professional player in Japan. Talk about having to make choices!

Tamara Murphy's tale of an early experiment in baking had me rolling and just to make sure I had indeed read it right, went back and reread it just to make sure.

That's just a taste of what is in here. There are stories of irate, tantrum throwing chefs, drunk and/or drugged out line cooks, the mysteries of finally understanding an ingredient or recipe and other delights. Nearly everyone in this book are slighly on the oddball side of life, with just a little touch of craziness for good measure. Most of all, each one is very passionate about what they do, and it shows -- perhaps it is there which separate the merely good from those who make it great.

One thing that I've noticed to nearly every contributor in this book is that they have an incredible hunger for knowledge and food. None of them are arrogant enough to claim that that they know it all, nor do they shy away from admitting their mistakes. That takes a lot of courage in our modern world that demands perfection above all else. Another aspect that I found interesting was that nearly all of the chefs in this book had either attended the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) or had been taught their craft in France in apprenticeship programs.

All in all, this is a delightful gift for the foodie that you know, or perhaps the budding chef that you know. None of the stories are very long, and each one reveals an aspect of the cooking world that proves to be interesting. Others are wickedly funny, and will have you guffawing.

Recommended.

This book provides short autobiographical sketches by some of the most well known and award winning chefs of our time. It allows the reader to peek into some of the formative experiences that drew them into the culinary world. A great book for a teenager pondering on career choices and decision making. The inner motivation to go after what you want, the ability to recognize ones own boundaries, the willingness to suffer now to reach a future goal, and other such character building lessons come through clearly.

The one thing I found distasteful was the inexplicable need for some of these world class chefs to frequently spew out verbal filth. I just don't understand this. Reading such chapters (thank goodness there are only a few!), I almost think that these chefs believe that the way to prove their superiority is by splashing the pages with trashy words. After reading their chapters I actually have less interest in knowing more about them or their cooking.

I found this book among some cookbooks - which is the only way I came across it, for I seem to only read recipes these days. It's a delightful and entertaining read of short essays which focus on chefs' "Aha!" moments. Certain essays read rushed and flat, but most are colorful, funny and inspiring! Definitely a nice surprise of a book for anyone interested in cooking and professional chefs.

This is a hilarious and sometimes heart rendering book of short stories written by the world's most famous chefs. Each chef describes the way they became interested in cooking. Some fell into the profession and a certain incident made them realize they wanted to cook for a living. Others were motivated by family. It's a great read, even on the beach.

After I read this book I took notes on the publications of the chefs I liked and ended up in the bookstore reviewing 8 or 9 cookbooks. I bought 2 of them.

I bought this book as a gift for my mother and for my brother-in-law. I was with my mom when she opened it and she had a hard time getting it away from me. I just meant to flip through and see if it lived up to my expectations -- it does! It's engaging and informative and the stories are varied and vivid.

If you love food, insights into the human experience, gossip, or just a good story, this is a delightful light read. It's perfect for reading while commuting by bus or train, indulging in literature over a good meal, soaking up while soaking in the bathtub, or delving into at bedtime.

Each story is a delicious little truffle of personal experience. Some will appeal more than others to each reader, but with so many amusing and moving stories, some are bound to resonate with you. There are even useful life lessons such as Anthony Bourdain's discussion of how to pick the right dish to make for a cooking segment on a morning news and talk show (hint: Steak au Poivre is not as good a choice as it may seem on the surface), or the sudden lightbulb moment that taught Mark Bittman how to stop piling stress on himself in order to entertain guests, or (perhaps my favorite) Gabrielle Hamilton's discovery of the difference between being a talented home cook and learning to be a chef.

The hardest part for me was the same trouble I've occassionally had with a box of good chocolates: restraining myself from eating it all in one, decadent sitting.

For best results, read one or two bites at a time, then let your mind savor them.

This is a fun book. Not interviews with chefs but 5-7 page chapters written by each of them. Not so much "how I learned to cook" (which would probably be boring, anyway after about the 5th one), as "some of my adventures/experiences as a chef".

I agree with the other review for the most part, but wanted to post my 5 star response based on different expectations. If you enjoy reading the experiences of some of the best chefs (and food writers) around, and enjoy a mixture of emotions (from Rick Bayless's sweet and heartfelt reflections on how Julia Child affected his life to Tony Bourdain's entertaining experiences trying to demonstrate recipes while hawking books on tv), this is a fun read--with information about food and techniques and "how to get from here to there" somewhat embedded throughout i. \

A fun glimpse into the personalities and experiences of many familiar names (nicely organized alphabetically--Ferran Adria kicks it off). I enjoyed this book very much.