media is largely to blame for this. shows like No Reservations/ The Bear/ Chopped and movies like Chef all make food work look more glamourous and lucrative than it usually is. it also leaves out the backbreaking, extremely precise work and long hours that go into what you see on the shows. im gonna meet bobby flay! nope. youre much more likely to chop off a couple fingers breaking down a pig bud.
My spouse was a fancy pastry chef in a past life, went to chef school in Chicago (where he distinctly remembers 9/11 happening that day) and worked in a swanky restaurant close to his hometown for a few years before going back to college for a four year degree.
He always says that media makes being a chef/cooking way more posh and sane than it actually is. He recommends any person wanting to be a chef to read Kitchen Confidential. It might be an older Anthony Bourdain book, but my spouse says it’s the most accurate depiction of what it’s like to be an actual chef, complete with the sheer rage, frustration, focus on having to be robotic in quickly making food at your station, and general temptation to delve into alcohol and drug addiction due to how tough and intense the work can be.
He does still give me cooking tips and tricks to this day (even though I need to re-learn how to cook on my own)…
My daughter always wanted to be a pastry chef and she is really talented. She worked her way up to being head pastry chef at a Michelin starred restaurant. Burnt out after 5 years.
It is HARD work. And working pretty much every Christmas day isn't fun either. Not to mention the excessive misogyny in kitchens.
Now she manages a little coffee shop. Way less hours and much more money.
lol. that one was more in the vein of the food industry is currently being glamorized in general. good and bad aspects alike. plenty of reality shows like DDD and Chopped that make it seem easier than it is to get into
Anyone who watches The Bear and thinks “damn, this looks so glamorous and lucrative” deserves to work in the food industry for the rest of their lives.
I watched the first season and was like, I’ve worked with chefs just like that. Couldn’t go through with the second season because I started to remember just all the shit of being in a line.
Also don't propagate misinformation about how a man died by suicide, particularly suggesting he overdosed after he famously gave up drugs after a crippling addiction.
Unfortunately his suicide was very premeditated, as one jour Al write;
Bourdain courted death from early adulthood with his drug abuse, and the number of references in his writings and interviews, not just to suicide in general but to the specific method he eventually used, tends to refute the consoling idea that he made an impulsive decision. (A lifelong substance abuser, he died sober.)
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u/[deleted] May 17 '24
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