Monday, June 11, 2018

Anthony Bourdain's first paen to kitchen life

Anthony Bourdain burst into the literary world with this article unmasking the secrets of the professional kitchen.

Don't eat the fish on Tuesday; it ain't fresh.
Gastronomy is the science of pain. Professional cooks belong to a secret society whose ancient rituals derive from the principles of stoicism in the face of humiliation, injury, fatigue, and the threat of illness. The members of a tight, well-greased kitchen staff are a lot like a submarine crew. Confined for most of their waking hours in hot, airless spaces, and ruled by despotic leaders, they often acquire the characteristics of the poor saps who were press-ganged into the royal navies of Napoleonic times—superstition, a contempt for outsiders, and a loyalty to no flag but their own. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this 
Suicide is a desperate act, but it is also a hostile act. It begets more hostility. It gives the survivors the perfect opportunity to express all their real feelings about one another, good and bad. Years of petty resentments, years of unmentioned slights and snubs, grab center stage. 
Something — or somebody — had driven my father to take his life. Somebody had failed to recognize the symptoms. Somebody had failed him, over and over. It was somebody’s fault. It had to be somebody’s fault — anybody but the guy who did it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/suicide-is-desperate-it-is-hostile-it-is-tragic-but-mostly-it-is-a-bloody-mess/

 


https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ 



No comments: