9 ms·

Don’t Eat Before Reading This (1999)

108 points by yincrash 3y ago

mrs_chan2022 3y ago
And now i can eat peacefully
Applejinx 3y ago
No archive link, and a paywall. …oh no!
- eshyong 3y ago
  https://archive.is/3fzmW https://archive.is/3fzmW
- 123sereusername 3y ago
  paying for content OMG!!!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
neonate 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20240204174057/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this https://web.archive.org/web/20240204174057/https://www.newyo...
delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
> Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous. Yikes. A comment that was a product of its times, I suppose. It is worth noting that Anthony Bourdain appeared to have changed his mind about vegetarian food after visiting Punjab, India[1], like so many other Western chefs whose only experience of vegetarian food so far was soggy vegetables, coleslaw, cold French fries, and sub-par pasta. It helps to have a history of vegetarianism going back nearly four millennia, I suppose. [1]: https://youtu.be/_RFTnb4nC-A?t=28 https://youtu.be/_RFTnb4nC-A?t=28
- Spivak 3y ago
  I mean I think his point still stands, if you want a meal in what could be loosely called western culinarily tradition made vegetarian or vegan you're asking to be disappointed. There's an interesting lack of "respect" for lack of a better word when it comes to western dishes, you wouldn't go to an Indian restaurant and ask for a dish to be made with beef or without spices but people ask western chefs to make dishes without using the core elements that basically define western cuisine, meat and dairy is everything.
  - dgfitz 3y ago
    This is touching on the crux of it: entitlement. Unfortunately, entitlement is quite on brand for us westerners these days.
  - delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
    > the core elements that basically define western cuisine, meat and dairy is everything It might be more accurate to say 'meat and dairy is everything in northern French cuisine', which Bourdain was a product of. Many Mediterranean cuisines are considerably more vegetarian-friendly: consider simple and fairly traditional Italian dishes like cacio e pepe, carciofi alla giudia, sugo all'arrabbiata, spaghetti aglio e olio, parmigiana melanzane, and pizza margherita/napoletana. That said, I get your point, and I wouldn't go to a steakhouse demanding good vegetarian food.
    - antiframe 3y ago
      A core element of cacio e pepe /is/ dairy, though. While I agree that Mediterranean cuisines are more vegetarian friendly they do feature a lot of fish and dairy, so I don't know if it's a good counter example.
    - ReptileMan 3y ago
      >consider simple and fairly traditional Italian dishes like cacio e pepe, carciofi alla giudia, sugo all'arrabbiata, spaghetti aglio e olio, parmigiana melanzane, and pizza margherita/napoletana. Steak fiorentina
123sereusername 3y ago
why?
amatecha 3y ago
Bourdain was awesome. His shows "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown" are full of interesting, thought-provoking explorations of the culinary world, all over the world. I wish he were still around to share that with us.
kylecazar 3y ago
Bourdain was a gem. His style of writing reminds me of the beats... It should be noted that Bourdain later walked back some of this advice years later -- as the population became more aware of what they eat, the industry adapted.
- Eric_WVGG 3y ago
  So a little-known fact about him is that he was in a way sort of a failed novelist. He would show up at his kitchens four hours early and plunk away at mystery novels, but of course it was Kitchen Confidential that took off and then carried him into teevee-land… anyway, I once had the opportunity to talk with him at a Q&A, basically said that the shows were great and all, but what I really loved were his novels, and was he working on anything new? The look on his face, he just glowed. I think writing was his real passion, and the TV and travel stuff kind of derailed that.
  - Slow_Hand 3y ago
    He was also a consulting writer for season 2 of Treme on HBO. Presumably for the story threads centered on Kim Dicken’s chef character.
ksherlock 3y ago
Anthony Bourdain walked back his Monday fish advice in one of his later books.
bmmayer1 3y ago
Brilliant early work from Bourdain that (I believe) launched his career, which was tragically cut short. Just last month, I feasted on bun cha next to the table in Hanoi where Obama and Bourdain ate in 2015. He was a global ambassador who united the world through our universal love of food, and really had an amazing impact bringing attention to all cultures and traditions. It's also important to learn from Bourdain's life that even if someone's life looks perfect from the outside, you never know what people are going through. Everyone deserves empathy. And please, if you are suffering, remember that you are not alone and there are people who can help.
- greenyoda 3y ago
  > Brilliant early work from Bourdain that (I believe) launched his career... Indeed, Wikipedia agrees with you: > In 1999, Bourdain's essay "Don't Eat Before Reading This" was published in The New Yorker. The essay, an unsolicited submission to the magazine, launched Bourdain's media career and served as the foundation for Kitchen Confidential. Released in 2000 to wide acclaim, the book is both a professional memoir and an unfiltered look at the less glamorous aspects of high-end restaurant kitchens, which he describes as unremittingly intense, unpleasant, hazardous, and staffed by misfits. Bourdain believes that the kitchen is no place for dilettantes or slackers and that only those with a masochistic dedication to cooking will remain undeterred. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential_(book)
anonu 3y ago
That's my 2nd time reading this article (I'm sure its been posted to HN a few times) - and I'm just always impressed by Bourdain's writing style. It has a wonderful cadence and rhythm that just lends itself to being read. Reminds you that its always good to be good at two things and bring them together. In this case he was sharp-witted and great at prose as well as being a celebrated chef. So why not host a show on food... Ultimately though, that may have been his undoing.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- camillomiller 3y ago
  His undoing was the darkness he harbored and made him a good writer in the first place.
etc-hosts 3y ago
In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón! chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all is well.”
keiferski 3y ago
A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. I spent quite a few formative years working in food service/kitchen jobs and this is definitely something I noticed. I came up with a theory as to why, which I think is largely still true: Preparing food is a “fast loop” activity. By this I mean that the amount of time it takes to go from putting in work to seeing a reward is fairly short, often only a few minutes. You see the efforts of your labor quickly, without needing to conceptualize the idea of receiving a reward at some unknown point in the future. This makes it ideal for those with short attention spans, the type of people that do eat the marshmallow instead of waiting for a greater reward. [1.] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...
- keiferski 3y ago
  Adding a few more thoughts to this, because I didn’t want to imply that kitchen workers are all criminals with short attention spans: I myself think I prefer the working style of fast loop jobs to that of typical office intellectual work. There is something much more real and rewarding about making a thing, from start to finish, in fifteen minutes or an hour. Unfortunately the modern white collar economy is not organized this way.
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  Also, it is a field with a very low barrier to entry. Any uneducated, not particularly bright person can start by washing the dishes, get promoted to serving them, etc. Source: many years of working in restaurants.
kopirgan 3y ago
Hilarious.. The cook in prison reminded me of an old mad mag parody on Nixon. He gets assigned to kitchen in hell. He goes, 'I'm not a cook'
caymanjim 3y ago
Always loved Anthony Bourdain. He used to come down to the Cayman Islands at least once a year with other A-list chefs for a culinary festival. He'd hang out at my local beach bar. Always hoped to run into him there, but I missed him every year. Wasn't enough of a stan to go looking for him. Just wish I'd bumped into him and shared a beer.
ughitsaaron 3y ago
A fun fact about this essay. It was published after Anthony’s mother made an unsolicited submission of it to David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. > Bourdain began his ascent as a writer and public personality when his mother sent a manuscript to me more than twenty years ago. Like any editor, I receive many unsolicited manuscripts, and each one carries a message: ignore this at your peril; brilliance could await. I read Bourdain’s piece and started laughing almost immediately.[0] I was fortunate enough to get to see Anthony retell this story during an interview at The New Yorker Festival, shortly before his passing. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-remembering-anthony-bourdain https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-r...

108 points by yincrash 3y ago

mrs_chan2022 3y ago

And now i can eat peacefully

Applejinx 3y ago

No archive link, and a paywall. …oh no!

eshyong 3y ago
https://archive.is/3fzmW https://archive.is/3fzmW
123sereusername 3y ago
paying for content OMG!!!

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

neonate 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20240204174057/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this https://web.archive.org/web/20240204174057/https://www.newyo...

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago

> Even more despised than the Brunch People are the vegetarians. Serious cooks regard these members of the dining public—and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans—as enemies of everything that’s good and decent in the human spirit. To live life without veal or chicken stock, fish cheeks, sausages, cheese, or organ meats is treasonous. Yikes. A comment that was a product of its times, I suppose. It is worth noting that Anthony Bourdain appeared to have changed his mind about vegetarian food after visiting Punjab, India[1], like so many other Western chefs whose only experience of vegetarian food so far was soggy vegetables, coleslaw, cold French fries, and sub-par pasta. It helps to have a history of vegetarianism going back nearly four millennia, I suppose. [1]: https://youtu.be/_RFTnb4nC-A?t=28 https://youtu.be/_RFTnb4nC-A?t=28

Spivak 3y ago
I mean I think his point still stands, if you want a meal in what could be loosely called western culinarily tradition made vegetarian or vegan you're asking to be disappointed. There's an interesting lack of "respect" for lack of a better word when it comes to western dishes, you wouldn't go to an Indian restaurant and ask for a dish to be made with beef or without spices but people ask western chefs to make dishes without using the core elements that basically define western cuisine, meat and dairy is everything.
- dgfitz 3y ago
  This is touching on the crux of it: entitlement. Unfortunately, entitlement is quite on brand for us westerners these days.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  > the core elements that basically define western cuisine, meat and dairy is everything It might be more accurate to say 'meat and dairy is everything in northern French cuisine', which Bourdain was a product of. Many Mediterranean cuisines are considerably more vegetarian-friendly: consider simple and fairly traditional Italian dishes like cacio e pepe, carciofi alla giudia, sugo all'arrabbiata, spaghetti aglio e olio, parmigiana melanzane, and pizza margherita/napoletana. That said, I get your point, and I wouldn't go to a steakhouse demanding good vegetarian food.
  - antiframe 3y ago
    A core element of cacio e pepe /is/ dairy, though. While I agree that Mediterranean cuisines are more vegetarian friendly they do feature a lot of fish and dairy, so I don't know if it's a good counter example.
  - ReptileMan 3y ago
    >consider simple and fairly traditional Italian dishes like cacio e pepe, carciofi alla giudia, sugo all'arrabbiata, spaghetti aglio e olio, parmigiana melanzane, and pizza margherita/napoletana. Steak fiorentina

123sereusername 3y ago

why?

amatecha 3y ago

Bourdain was awesome. His shows "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown" are full of interesting, thought-provoking explorations of the culinary world, all over the world. I wish he were still around to share that with us.

kylecazar 3y ago

Bourdain was a gem. His style of writing reminds me of the beats... It should be noted that Bourdain later walked back some of this advice years later -- as the population became more aware of what they eat, the industry adapted.

Eric_WVGG 3y ago
So a little-known fact about him is that he was in a way sort of a failed novelist. He would show up at his kitchens four hours early and plunk away at mystery novels, but of course it was Kitchen Confidential that took off and then carried him into teevee-land… anyway, I once had the opportunity to talk with him at a Q&A, basically said that the shows were great and all, but what I really loved were his novels, and was he working on anything new? The look on his face, he just glowed. I think writing was his real passion, and the TV and travel stuff kind of derailed that.
- Slow_Hand 3y ago
  He was also a consulting writer for season 2 of Treme on HBO. Presumably for the story threads centered on Kim Dicken’s chef character.

ksherlock 3y ago

Anthony Bourdain walked back his Monday fish advice in one of his later books.

bmmayer1 3y ago

Brilliant early work from Bourdain that (I believe) launched his career, which was tragically cut short. Just last month, I feasted on bun cha next to the table in Hanoi where Obama and Bourdain ate in 2015. He was a global ambassador who united the world through our universal love of food, and really had an amazing impact bringing attention to all cultures and traditions. It's also important to learn from Bourdain's life that even if someone's life looks perfect from the outside, you never know what people are going through. Everyone deserves empathy. And please, if you are suffering, remember that you are not alone and there are people who can help.

greenyoda 3y ago
> Brilliant early work from Bourdain that (I believe) launched his career... Indeed, Wikipedia agrees with you: > In 1999, Bourdain's essay "Don't Eat Before Reading This" was published in The New Yorker. The essay, an unsolicited submission to the magazine, launched Bourdain's media career and served as the foundation for Kitchen Confidential. Released in 2000 to wide acclaim, the book is both a professional memoir and an unfiltered look at the less glamorous aspects of high-end restaurant kitchens, which he describes as unremittingly intense, unpleasant, hazardous, and staffed by misfits. Bourdain believes that the kitchen is no place for dilettantes or slackers and that only those with a masochistic dedication to cooking will remain undeterred. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Confidential_(book)

anonu 3y ago

That's my 2nd time reading this article (I'm sure its been posted to HN a few times) - and I'm just always impressed by Bourdain's writing style. It has a wonderful cadence and rhythm that just lends itself to being read. Reminds you that its always good to be good at two things and bring them together. In this case he was sharp-witted and great at prose as well as being a celebrated chef. So why not host a show on food... Ultimately though, that may have been his undoing.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
camillomiller 3y ago
His undoing was the darkness he harbored and made him a good writer in the first place.

etc-hosts 3y ago

In New York, the main linguistic spice is Spanish. “Hey, maricón! chupa mis huevos” means, roughly, “How are you, valued comrade? I hope all is well.”

keiferski 3y ago

A few years ago, I wasn’t surprised to hear rumors of a study of the nation’s prison population which reportedly found that the leading civilian occupation among inmates before they were put behind bars was “cook.” As most of us in the restaurant business know, there is a powerful strain of criminality in the industry, ranging from the dope-dealing busboy with beeper and cell phone to the restaurant owner who has two sets of accounting books. I spent quite a few formative years working in food service/kitchen jobs and this is definitely something I noticed. I came up with a theory as to why, which I think is largely still true: Preparing food is a “fast loop” activity. By this I mean that the amount of time it takes to go from putting in work to seeing a reward is fairly short, often only a few minutes. You see the efforts of your labor quickly, without needing to conceptualize the idea of receiving a reward at some unknown point in the future. This makes it ideal for those with short attention spans, the type of people that do eat the marshmallow instead of waiting for a greater reward. [1.] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...

keiferski 3y ago
Adding a few more thoughts to this, because I didn’t want to imply that kitchen workers are all criminals with short attention spans: I myself think I prefer the working style of fast loop jobs to that of typical office intellectual work. There is something much more real and rewarding about making a thing, from start to finish, in fifteen minutes or an hour. Unfortunately the modern white collar economy is not organized this way.
4gotunameagain 3y ago
Also, it is a field with a very low barrier to entry. Any uneducated, not particularly bright person can start by washing the dishes, get promoted to serving them, etc. Source: many years of working in restaurants.

kopirgan 3y ago

Hilarious.. The cook in prison reminded me of an old mad mag parody on Nixon. He gets assigned to kitchen in hell. He goes, 'I'm not a cook'

caymanjim 3y ago

Always loved Anthony Bourdain. He used to come down to the Cayman Islands at least once a year with other A-list chefs for a culinary festival. He'd hang out at my local beach bar. Always hoped to run into him there, but I missed him every year. Wasn't enough of a stan to go looking for him. Just wish I'd bumped into him and shared a beer.

ughitsaaron 3y ago

A fun fact about this essay. It was published after Anthony’s mother made an unsolicited submission of it to David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. > Bourdain began his ascent as a writer and public personality when his mother sent a manuscript to me more than twenty years ago. Like any editor, I receive many unsolicited manuscripts, and each one carries a message: ignore this at your peril; brilliance could await. I read Bourdain’s piece and started laughing almost immediately.[0] I was fortunate enough to get to see Anthony retell this story during an interview at The New Yorker Festival, shortly before his passing. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-remembering-anthony-bourdain https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-r...