The Making of a Chef
Oct 8, 2008 books, general food, reviews
Finally I have finished reading Michael Ruhlman’s The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute. Favorite quotes are highlighted, the dust jacket has been replaced, and it is with sadness–because it is over–that I have returned it to the gastronomy section of my bookshelf. How I hadn’t read the book until now escapes me; especially so in that I’ve owned it for a very long time. My guess is that it had something to do with its having come out shortly after Becoming a Chef. At the time I was a cook, and I can recall reading in several places, as well as hearing word-of-mouth, that it was in some way a lesser version of that book but that’s simply not the case. It has held up far greater than Becoming a Chef which covers only the culinary growth of several celebrity chefs. Their stories are not normal, however, and the view Ruhlman gives us instead is that of the more typical worker.
. Favorite quotes are highlighted, the dust jacket has been replaced, and it is with sadness–because it is over–that I have returned it to the gastronomy section of my bookshelf. How I hadn’t read the book until now escapes me; especially so in that I’ve owned it for a very long time. My guess is that it had something to do with its having come out shortly after It is not, however, just a book encapsulating what it’s like to be a student at The CIA eager to move forward into the industry well-equipped to succeed. Having become intensely attached to both The CIA and his instructors, Ruhlman’s perspective is not unbiased and this lends the book a sort of memoir quality. As a result, there is value to be had in his documentation of his experience not only of becoming a cook, but of finding out that he is one. An extraordinary writer capable of perfectly describing in vivid detail all the goings on in a kitchen, you’re left feeling almost as though you’ve stolen his journal and my unfettered enjoyment left me wondering why exactly the book is sometimes frowned upon.
Probably it’s that for the world of culinary students enrolled at local community colleges (and that’s most of them) there was, and continues to be, a certain jealousy cast towards The Culinary Institute of America. Many cooks, as Ruhlman points out, look down upon graduates of the school believing they are unprepared to enter the work force. Speak to any chef whose hired them, however, and they will often tell you that CIA graduates are more prepared to hit the ground running (as cooks not chefs) then practically any other workers. What they take from the school is not just a base set of traditional skills, but also a work ethic to build upon throughout their career.
In a word, The Making of a Chef is astonishing but, having originally hit shelves in 1997, my opinion is far beyond fashionably late as people have been saying that for over a decade. Really though, with the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think I would have fully appreciated the book for all that it is without the distance between today and the time in my life when I was a cook. After all, I went to Forest Park.
The book personally impacted me when Ruhlman mentioned the change in attitude when one becomes a cook. He believes—as do I—that you simply don’t look at certain aspects of your life the same again. Most obvious is that for each of us that has cooked and stopped, there is still a piece of us drawn to the lifestyle that is difficult to shake. Having met Ruhlman on his Elements of Cooking tour he also spoke more specifically of this change citing, as an example, the organizational skills he took with him out of the kitchen. He found that post-CIA he approached what once felt like the insurmountable task of writing a book in a far different manner.
In my own experience I took from my kitchen years an entirely different concept of stress than most office workers. In the positions I’ve held since cooking I often see people stressed as though things couldn’t be any worse. Every time, however, I just think to myself that these people don’t know stress. Stress is standing in a 120degree kitchen falling behind as a chef stands on a shelf hovering over the pass screaming down at you to move faster. All this after you’d been burnt by your coworker who sloppily put his fish into an over-oiled pan that splashed molten liquid across your arm creating a blister that swells larger each time you thrust your arm in and out of the 600degree convection oven that later in the night catches on fire.
If you sit in a chair and work in front of a computer (as I do today), the maximum amount of stress obtainable is still pretty low. Certainly some will disagree with this statement, but to put it another way: people simply don’t yell at you in the same way at an office. The possibility of your angry Irish boss literally throwing something in your direction is minimal.
With thousands of copies having been sold since its release, my word shouldn’t be the one that gets you to read The Making of a Chef. Others have praised it more eloquently before me. But, if you still haven’t, go ahead and add my opinion to the pile because you should pick up a copy. It’s one of the most engaging food memoirs you’ll find.
Tags: Michael Ruhlman
October 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
very cool, Bill. i am excited to read it. thanks for the recommendation.
i particularly like your description of (your own?) stressful situation of “splashed molten liquid across your arm creating a blister that swells larger each time you thrust your arm in and out of the 600degree convection oven that later in the night catches on fire.”
October 8th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Thanks for your great review. I will definitely put this book on my christmas list.
This past June I attended a week long boot camp at the CIA. This of course was childs’ play and can’t be compared to a real culinary student’s experience but we boot campers did get a little glimpse into the workings of the CIA. The experience was invaluable to me and although it was just a week, I became a much better cook.
It was entirely remarkable to me how happy and positive the dozens of students I interfaced with seemed to be. They all spoke of their learning experience as positive, challenging, rigorous, fast paced and exciting. They expressed what seemed to me to be a less than normal amount of student bitches and moans about this or that chef and I never heard a single student express true disrespect toward any of their teachers.
I believe that the CIA has changed in some very important ways since Ruhlman was there. Specifically, the current operators of the academy seem to have recognized the calling for teaching offering culinary students the business aspects of the culinary arts and the school now has a full array of classes to teach people how to be managers, executives, operators, etc. Students I spokew ith about this aspect of the CIA (some of whom never intended to do any cooking on a professional level) were entirely enthusiastic about having the world class reputation of the CIA behind them as they gained their training in the business of the business.
I was definitely clear that if I circumstances were ever right, I would absolutely love to attend the CIA as a “real” student.