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Books : The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America |
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Books : The Making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America |
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by: Michael Ruhlman
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5092 EAN: 9780805046748 ISBN: 0805046747 Label: Henry Holt and Co. Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Co. Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: December 15, 1997 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Sales Rank: 510095 Studio: Henry Holt and Co. Editorial Review: Related Items:
Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Insightful and EntertainingI really enjoyed this book. What I expected was an inside-the-walls report about an interesting institution, its students, and its instructors. To be sure, the book is that. But it is more. The core of the book, I think, is the epiphany, or series of epiphanies, that Ruhlman has on and after a day he considers missing class because of a snowstorm. The book's major themes orbit that formative experience and are held by its gravity. Some of these are deep, thought-provoking, and ultimately unanswerable matters; for example, the cook's version of the nature v. nurture debate - are cooks born or created? Some are a bit more CIA-specific; Rulman's thesis that the overarching dogma of the place is perfection is both beautifully explained and illustrated by vignettes (for example, the running obsession with the proper roux for brown sauce). To me, though, the book is at its finest in using the snowstorm core to explain the essence of a cook. Ruhlman finds the concept difficult to reduce to words. One important aspect, though, seems to be captured albeit imperfectly by the hackneyed concept of "the zone." (Ruhlman doesn't use this term.) There are occasions - not many - when I have been in "the zone." I am not a cook, but I have had times - at school, at work, and with some hobbies - when I have faced monumental tasks, with seemingly not enough time, and where my attention has been entirely engaged and neither failure or tardiness is an option; where the completion of each task along the way offers no time for reflection, satisfaction, or rest but instead is merely the predicate for moving, as efficiently as possible, to the next. What I remember most about these occasions is the decompression period when the project is complete. The transition, almost literally, from focused vision to a fuller field of vision. I can recall, for example, one such occasion where, when my work was finally done in the late evening, I noticed a complete and completely uneaten lunch that I had somehow secured in the midst of the task, but could not remember how. It sat no more than 2 feet from me throughout, untouched and, indeed, unseen, until the pinpoint focus broadened and peripheral vision returned. For a brief time my senses are alive. I see, sense, and interact with the world differently. And then, too quickly, I return to my normal state - well outside "the zone" with my attention scattered in different directions. Surgeons or professional athletes, who similarly live in and out of the zone, probably can already relate. For the rest of us, Ruhlman's book is a dramatic success and accessible to non-cooks like me precisely because we all, no doubt, have had similar experiences to varying degrees. What Ruhlman helps us see is that CIA students, and cooks, live almost perpetually in these states - in "the zone," then the exhausted but exhilarating hyper-aware state that follows, immediately back into the zone, and on and on. While many cooks-turned-writers such as Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White have attempted to describe similar states, they paint with too broad and imperfect a brush - typically resorting to incomplete concepts like "adrenaline junkie." Ruhlman - a writer turned cook - however, nails it in a much more satisfying exploration of the question and in so doing makes his book amazingly accessibly to anyone and, indeed, transcendent. Rating: - Well written, dragged a bit at times, but learned so very muchWell if you are not a foodie I would suggest reducing the review by 3 stars and finding something else to read, but if you are a foodie this book was excellent. A nice fairly complete telling of what it is like to go through the Culinary Institute which is something I always wanted to do but either didn't have the time nor wish to commit so much of it. I am always playing in the kitchen and I got a ton of direction from this book as to the why of what I often do without knowing it (of course if that is all you are looking for there is McGee). Even little things that I picked up were great, for example, my wife hates wet sandwich bread, here in America we eat a lot of sandwiches so this small thing is a big problem. In the book they make mention of how the CIA club sandwich always puts cheese on the bread to create a barrier, so simple but something that never dawned on me, sounds silly but now I know how to make my sandwiches and her happy at the same time, thats worth a lot more than the price of the book right there. Rating:  - Disappointing & MisleadingRuhlman tries very hard to be neither a culinary student nor a journalist, so he ends up being a sort of half-baked memoirist. On the one hand, this book is worth reading in order to get a behind-the-scenes of some of what it's like to train at the CIA, but on the other hand, Ruhlman's lack of writerly discipline makes the book exasperatingly low on information. There's far too much hero-worship on his part of dominant male figures at the school; it seems that Ruhlman is powerfully drawn to aggressive, angry, powerful, and/or graceful men, and his account of the CIA is overshadowed by his need to be accepted by and mythologize male chefs like Adam (a passionate, withdrawn student), the school's president, his Skills teacher, and other male teachers. Worst of all, the women at the school are given short-shrift by Ruhlman, presented as either needy figures of fun or neurotic screwups who get put in their place by a man. This read less like accurate reporting and more like the bias of a writer who isn't as interested in the women he meets. I wouldn't have minded if Ruhlman had acknowledged the effect these men had on him and his need to be accepted by them and had written honestly about that, but he hid behind his so-called account of training at the CIA and his creation of what he describes as the nature of people who are born to cook. In actuality, he skipped most of the school's curriculum and was given special treatment by the staff. Overall, a disappointing and frustrating read. Rating: - Deft, knowledgeable, and well writtenMichael Ruhlman has found his true calling. He's one of the best authors currently out there who writes culinaryeese ... not about recipes, but about [i]the journey/experience itself[/i]. And he does it with the intimacy and sensitivity of someone who's been through the process himself. In this book, the author takes the reader on a ride though what it's like to attend the Culinary Institute of America, from the perspective of an insider/student. Wonderful book. Well written. Deft, and knowledgeable. Highly recommended for self-taught cooking aficianados who love every aspect of their hobby, and also for people considering formalized culinary education and a career in the food industry.
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