Yes, that's right, I finished the book.

Let me start out by saying that I think it’s a safe assumption that I think about food more than the average person. I am the opposite of the saying “Don’t live to eat, eat to live.” Most days, I live to eat. So it goes without saying that I was thrilled to pick up a book completely about Italian food and one man’s (seriously awesome) journey learning as much about it as possible by working in a NYC kitchen with one of the most renowned chefs and from the people who know it best – Italians.

I began this book more excited to read about Mario Batali -a personal Food Network hero- than anything, but found that my favorite section was the one in which Buford details his experience with Italy’s most well known butcher (oddly enough, as I’m opposed to eating meat), Dario Cecchini. I found that there is a place in this world where people truly take care and are even passionate about where their meat comes from, how the animal lived, what the animal ate, and so on. I appreciated this thought on meat as well: “People don’t think of an animal when they use the word; they think of an abstraction; they think of an element in a meal. (“What I want tonight is a cheeseburger!”)…To my mind, vegetarians are among the few people who actually think about meat – at least they know what it is.”

If you are interested in learning about the history of Italian food, but from a completely unique and privileged experience, look no further. But be prepared to read about what I consider some pretty repulsive stuff. For example, “Culatello translates loosely as ‘buttness’ and is made from the hindquarters of a pig – boned, stuffed into a bladder, cured, and hung for two years in the damp local cellars. The method is deemed unmodern by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and culatello is forbidden in America.” Sick.

I gave the book four stars because I felt as though it wasn’t completely focused at times. Buford details so many staff members, friends, teachers, and so on that I just felt scatterbrained half the time. I eventually stopped trying to remember who most of the people were and paid more attention to the accounts of the people and their experiences, not who they themselves were.

And while I did find this book pretentious at times, (i.e., “His tortellini were made with a veal and capon filling – bovine and fowl, and unmodern pairing, and one I associate with the meats you find in a Bolognese ragu.” Groooaaan) the insight into a few once in a lifetime opportunities of working with some of the most highly regarded people in terms of culinary preparation and tradition was the redeeming factor. If anything, this book will give those Italian-Americans who are obsessed with being Italian, yet can only speak to the knowledge of their “big families” and “grandma’s amazing cooking,” something more to talk about. I think we all know people like this and all can agree that it’s more than aggravating.

But the bottom line is this: I’m not really a food snob. While this guy’s experiences were incredible, I personally don’t know anyone who could relate to the author. I love good food, but I also like Taco Bell. As expected when reading something of this nature, it made me feel like if I purchased pasta anywhere other than from some obscure pasta-maker from the hillside in Porretta, Italy, I shouldn’t eat pasta at all. And I just can’t do that.

Most food writing is shit. It wallows in superlatives as brazenly as real estate hustings. But really good writing about food makes the heart soar.

This is in the second category. Partially because Buford is so craven, so desperate to GET what it is like being young, dumb and full of come in a kitchen more stuffed with wise-asses and borderline personality disorders than the average martini olive.

Lots of guys take up lycra and the bike for their mid-life thingo. Or get expensive mistresses. Or foreign cars (the same thing, really). Buford rather sadly wants to cut it on the line in a four star restaurant. He is known as “kitchen bitch”.

Happily for the reader, as a long-time food obsessed New Yorker staff writer with serious “chops” (sorry) in the descriptive department, it’s a pretty great ride for the reader.

Things I learnt from Bill Buford:
1.Mario Batali is deeply unlikeable.
2.Kitchens are the most unreconstructed misogynist bastions imaginable. Still.
3.Italians love a gesture. The thing that makes it ineffably charming, which gives it gravitas, is that they LIVE by such gestures. Even if it makes their lives in some ways suck.

I was tempted to deduct points from Buford’s giant schwing (sentimental and gee whiz all at the same time which is some feat for an erection) for artisanal production. YES, food made by hand is better. YES, frankenstein food production is a truly terrible side-effect of globalisation. But I’ve heard it a lot. And it doesn’t explain how in reality non-yuppies in urban settings can readily afford organic/local meats and produce. Other than to grown it, which is a HUGE leap for many folks. People don’t want to eat shit, but gee, nutrition is pretty good nowadays. Have you SEEN the SIZE of the feet on sixteen-year-old girls?

I didn’t deduct the points because this book isn’t so new, and perhaps the Michael Pollan-esque message was a bit fresher then.

Buford scores because he makes it fun instead of holier-than-thou. You won’t forget the Tuscan butchers he trains with in a hurry, either.

I enjoyed this book because I like reading about food and restaurants. However, I think the book would’ve benefited from focusing on his time with Batali and in the Babbo kitchen specifically. The second half of the book that takes place in Italy was interesting but I found myself wishing for less history and more cooking.

He's so funny and so enthusiastic and so deluded--so human. It really is fascinating to see the lengths people will go for their passion, if they can. This is pulls the curtain back at bit from professional chef-ery, and restaurant cooking in general. For the few that make it big, there are millions who slave in the heat...I don't think I will ever forget the polenta anecdote.

like a new yorker article that goes on way too long. i couldn't finish it.

i got this to read on the airplane, and it did an admirable job for that precise purpose. but there's one thing that's a real problem for this book. About halfway through, he ends a chapter saying he has to leave New York to deal with "personal demons." Fine. But he never mentions what they are/ were. And the book is all under the guise of a kind of memoir. If he's not going to tell the reader what those demons are, don't use it as a cliffhanger/ enticement to keep reading. Not only is it supremely annoying, but it detracts and distracts from the rest of the book. What the hell kind of editor would let that in anyway: "Hey, why don't you leave a tease in there about your personal life, and then never come back to it? I'm sure the reader would love that! Especially since they're probably reading this book more to find out about food than you! So why not get the interested in your life for 5 seconds." Assholes.

episodic but unified. zippy and makes you want to get on the line... or at least get up and start some Italian home cooking of your own -he says as he starts making pasta-

Ugh, amazing. Buford is a great writer. Just the language is seamless and subtle and doesn't betray a lot of the mechanics and transitions. He does make the occasional mistake (sometimes repeating himself, mangled chronological sleight of hand, and the transition into "Apprentice" illustrates the importance of word choice, "personal demons" to mean his obsession with butchery and not family issues) a little more noticeable, but who cares.

The structure astutely uses the mantra: form follows function. Heat's function or purpose is Buford. The point is to follow Buford's quixotic journey into food. The structure follows Buford's research and journey. We start with Batali and Batali's history, using clearly delineated history as we chart both Batali's and Buford's kitchen trials. The two are not directly paralleled and Buford mainly uses the comparison to poke fun at himself. As Buford establishes himself in the kitchen, Buford quiets the history on Batali and eventually Batali all but disappears and Buford steps to the fore.
The point is not Batali. He's the hook, but not the point.

Heat is a great example of creative nonfiction in its use of characters. The characters feel made-up, they have a depth and a roundness that makes you think he thought them up, but instead Buford has selected details to make us see them as round characters. I particularly loved Andy, Caesar, and the Maestro, characters that say more through absence and silence.

Heat has great tension between his status as not an outsider and not an insider. This tension follows through in the tone, which is a delicate mix between detachment and intimacy. Buford succeeds at this precarious mix mainly through his wry sense of humor, most of it directed at his own ineptitude. Here, Buford's technique is more noticeable than elsewhere, but it is an effective usage. He uses a lot of nonrestrictive clauses in his syntax. He has his own loosely codified system of rules for these nonrestrictive clauses--quotes go in parentheses, comedic asides in dashes, and loose "voice" asides in commas. Oftentimes a lot of nonrestrictive clauses can lead to some difficulty reading because the sentences become so long, but the wry humor helps Buford combat this tendency.

In many ways I think Heat is about the cult of foodie culture. Buford is very aware of the inconsistencies and impracticalities inherent in it even as he talks up the Pollan myth (organic, slow food, locavore, etc.). He starts with the cult of the chef to draw in the reader. Batali is great for this because he is such a personality, but the reader sees the production side of things and gets to see "behind the curtain." I was particularly fascinated by the anecdote of Batali preparing easy fan-interactions he could pull out when someone recognized him after his first fan was disappointed in his normalcy. This section ends with the equally fascinated discussion of the Food Network and its move away from Mario, away from personality and into presentation and food porn. Then, Buford moves on to the cult of authenticity, or the idea that the best of anything is only available at the source. So Buford travels to Italy to study pasta-making with Miriam. Lastly, Buford ends with the cult of ingredient. In his case, meat. He makes a sizable error in calling his obsession with meat a "personal demon." This section bookends an interesting discussion of the "inter-office" squabbles of a top tier New York kitchen so to cut it right off at what might seem like the most dramatic point was an interesting decision (a mistake I would say). Also, calling it a "personal demon" brings up the specter of alcoholism and drug abuse, not meat addiction, but I can't help, but love this section for its characters.

As Buford goes deeper and deeper into his quixotic quest to become an "artisan" butcher, we reach the ne plus ultra of this insider/outsider tension. Buford is now physically 100% in the Maestro's world, but mentally he begins to inch out, and we as the reader begin to ask, "What is the point of this? Does Buford want to be a butcher? Open a restaurant?" This moment is important because the answer is of course something along the lines of he wants to do all these things AND write a book about it. Buford toes the line and doesn't make me question his intellectual curiosity and honesty. He underlines this point with the story of Batali's night out, where Batali point blank asks him if he wants to open a restaurant. Buford's answer validates the position of the "amateur" in foodie culture.

Enjoyed reading it in a kind of clandestine way. Technical inaccuracies about food and cooking abound, which really annoys me in a book that presents itself from a semi-professional point of view. Bill Buford is claiming that he learned things at his time in restaurant, which is undoubtedly true, but he didn't learn as much as he think he did. Publishing houses that publish books on food writing should really have better trained food editors on staff.

To me, few things are more enthralling than the inner workings of a professional kitchen. I grew up watching the Food Network - Barefoot Contessa, Iron Chef America, Good Eats, Everyday Italian, Throwdown and so on. That’s probably where the fascination comes from. It was really cool to have a closer look at Mario Batali’s culinary career – a man I used to just know as the TV chef with the Crocs – and his contribution of pushing modern Italian cuisine forward.

Bill Buford is most admirable in his pursuit of unlocking the secrets of Italian cooking. I was really inspired by his thirst for knowledge not for the sake of making his own name in the culinary industry, but simply for the sake of being more human and immersing himself in the art and tradition of Italian cooking. As he puts it, the secret is to cook with a simplicity that takes a lifetime to learn.

Amateur-chef Bill Buford´s Heat is a joy to read. The book promises a journey behind the scenes of a world renowned kitchen, Babbo, the restaurant owned by none other than Mario Batali, whose nights start when everyone else is in bed. The story is written not only to entertain, but also to show the hidden side of the life as a chef. And he also uncovers an enterprise designed on a social hierarchy that ironically depends on the bottom people the most. All of the dishwashers, prep chefs, line cooks, and pastry chefs join Babbo to work under the wing of the great master that is Mario Batali. Although a big-time chef with an even bigger personality, he isn't much more than a symbol, rarely stopping by the kitchen for more than a quick spot check. This is a hard reality for the chefs and poses a challenge to those who are specifically there to learn from him. Buford soon sees that he can learn from the others in the kitchen, such as the heads of the grill, pasta, and pastry station. He loves the thrill of working in a kitchen and loves every second he spends there. Heat accomplishes its promise by giving a rare glimpse into the genius that goes into making great food, and explores the roots of cooking when Buford becomes a pasta maker in northern Italy and a butcher's apprentice in Tuscany.
tWhen he quits his job at The New Yorker to join the Babbo kitchen, Buford sets up it a do-or-die moment for himself. There is no choice for him but to embrace his decision. He quickly learns the toil it takes to make it in the cooking industry, but the difficult hours only makes him love it more. Inspired to dig in deeper, he takes an apprenticeship in Tuscany at a butcher’s shop, run by a man named Dario, but known more famously to all as “The Maestro”. Dario teaches Buford the details that make a butcher a master, like greatness of a cow's innards, where each section of meat is wholly different and exquisite, down to the very last millimeter. Through the Maestro’s obsession with quoting Dante, and the lovely company of cow carcasses, a new light is shed on cooking for Buford, who realizes that there are hundreds of variables you must learn to fully appreciate a meal at a great restaurant like Babbo.
The author also travels to Northern Italy to take an apprenticeship with a woman named Miriam and learn the trade of pasta-making. He simply calls her up and says, “Miriam, I want to work with you.” She responds by telling him to come by one afternoon. He had thought of more a 1-2 month apprenticeship. “A month? I never let anyone into my kitchen--ever. I don't know what to say. Are you crazy?!” Because of her anger, he goes to Tuscany to apprentice for a butcher.
Bill Buford is extremely qualified to write about this journey, due to the fact that he experienced it all first hand. His knowledge of cooking spans immensely over many subjects and the tone of the book is funny and light, but also packed with tough cooking terms and wonderful details that will thrill any aspiring chef. The book is very well written and the content was so gripping that I was totally enthralled. My favorite part came at the very end, when Buford made a return of sorts to the beginning of the book and a dinner he had with Batali. In the chapter, “Dinner with Mario”, the chef and Buford sit down to eat and chat for hours about Bill’s journey, the possibly owning his own restaurant in Italy, and all that has happened in their time together. This was great because of how well it wrapped everything up. My least favorite part of the book, and also what I would change, is how much time the book spends hammering down the repetition in the Babbo kitchen. While it was still fun to read, these parts got slightly boring when they themselves were repeated again and again. I might trim some of these parts, or possibly put other content between them so they are separated more.
This book has no graphs, pictures, or illustrations, but I would still recommend it to any and all who like cooking and love eating (who doesn't?), along with people interested in a light read that simultaneously packs in great info and stories. I had a blast reading it and found it to be over all too soon.

This was a fantastic read. I’d recommend it to anyone who has even a remote love of cooking.