Food as:

- a business
- an artform
- an intellectual interest
- a link to the soil
- a tenuous and evocative link to the past

plus:

- recipes (of a sort, since recipes are for home cooks, we learn) for linguine with clams, the tuscan version of beef bourginion, and more
- mario batali is a foul-mouthed drunk who loves the ladies
- restaurant kitchens are no place for the myth and mystery of food (e.g., the $29 bowl of "peasant" soup made from scraps); dried pasta served at high-end italian restaurants

buford is a fine writer, and his intellectual curiosity about food -- the ingredients, the history, the cooking process, the eating and enjoyment -- drives the reader along from one experience to the next. olive oil, working the line, ancient breeds of cattle, appreciating the flavors of a slice of pure pig fat. if you appreciate your food as more than a source of fuel, you'll find something to like in this book.

As food critic said about Babbo, I say about this book, I would have given it four stars but...

I felt that the story lagged when he worked with the Butcher in Tuscany. But some of the most hilarious adventures happened there too.

"I had concerns....The other was that my apron, which was floor-length, would catch on fire. I rehearsed in my mind the possible scenario. The apron is secured around the waist with a string belt....So that was the first thing--untie it. If I didn't, it could be ugly. I pictured myself in flames, being unable to remove the apron, and Dario's rushing over, all heroic and decisive, picking me up with his giant hands, hurling me to the floor, and stomping out the fire. (I did not want to be stomped.) (p. 229)

Let's just say there was a fire and some stomping ensued.

But this was a marvelous book if you enjoy cooking, want to know more about the life of restaurants, are a Mario Batali fan, or just simply love Italian food. Part of me wants to sell everything and go follow the "way of Mario". Although I don't think I would ever buy a whole pig and butcher it at home.

But it does give me pause to think of how little we Americans think about where food comes from and how it SHOULD taste. Too often Buford made too "American" statements when he is over in Italy, which I found slightly distracting. But I appreciated the journey he took. My own experiences in China and Europe made me realize that food in the US doesn't taste like what it should. Tomatoes don't taste like tomatoes. Rice doesn't taste like rice. We've over processed, perserved, added, and chemically, hormonally, altered our food for convenience sake. There is something to be said about knowing where your food came from, how it was prepared, and following the traditions that were passed down father to son and mother to daughter.

So if anything, let this book help you find your food roots and begin a new journey of savoring the stuff we cram into our mouths.

If Bill Buford would have written this as a true memoir and followed his personal story in chronological order, the book would have been 5 stars instead of 3. But, alas, he digresses into entire chapters on topics such as "when did egg get introduced into pasta?" and completely throws his game. Buford is an excellent writer who needs an editor!

I read this book last year and it was deleted from my booklist by Goodreads. Who naturally say this couldn't happen, I must have deleted it myself. I've never been able to prove before that the book was on my booklist until this one. It's not on my list yet I read it, and I wrote a comment last October on a friend's, Karen's review. I just came across this comment today.

"The bit about eating pure pork fat close to the beginning really put me off. It doesn't matter what fancy name you call it, nor that the pig ate apples and walnuts and cream for months before it was butchered, the fact remains that it is lard. Disgusting, gross and all the rest."

I couldn't have written this if I hadn't read it. But that wouldn't do for GR, because I still can't prove that I didn't delete it myself. How can anyone prove that?

Btw the book was quite good. Buford is full of himself, but not as much as Batali. If you like chef-stories this is about middle of the pack for interest and enjoyment.

Read 2014.

THIS IS A FAVORITE!!

I read this book on vacation and it completely altered my state of mind! I was transported into the world of a commercial kitchen, and then to Italy for historic preparation of handmade pasta. Bill Buford is a delightful author, funny and a little insane.

Only two complaints about this book. First, I was disgusted when he went to work for a butcher and, in great detail, described his new expertise. I sped read through that chapter, but I've eaten primarily vegetarian for more than 20 years.

Second, he doesn't talk about his personal life AT ALL. Come on, you have a wife who is forced to put up with your manic adventures -- forfeiting your stable 23-year career in journalism in order to work in a restaurant until 4 a.m. each night, arriving home smelling like holy hell, I am sure. I think we need to know a little bit about how she handles you!

Otherwise, I adore this book and his writing style. Don't miss it! He'll leave you inspired in your own kitchen!

I read half this book, really enjoyed it, and then had to return it to the library. I ended up finishing it on Audible and thoroughly enjoyed it. With the recent #MeToo movement, it was particularly interesting to hear about Chef Mario's behavior. The sheer amount they drank throughout the book was unbelievable. Loved every aspect, and so glad I came back to Heat. It really is one of the quintessential books on food.

Long rambling memoir of a writer masquerading as a chef. Unlike Kitchen Confidential, you can tell the author is not part of this world, merely passing through. This makes the whole book more of an anthropological study of a restaurant kitchen than a historical account.

One of my main takeaways was related to the author’s experiences cooking in Italy. It’s there that he learns traditional recipes passed down for generations from a home cook. The woman he learns pasta making from is hurt a prior apprentice had taken her recipes and modernized them for restaurants in NYC. To her, these recipes are her family identity, not culinary building blocks to be played with.

I don’t have any generational family recipes, and this book made me think for the first time that maybe I’m missing out because of it.

Actually, I only got a little over halfway through the book before I realized I had lost the momentum. It was really entertaining at first, but a lot reminded me of Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential without the cred. I couldn't help but start getting frustrated that Buford did not deserve the privilege and luxury of jumping from station to station in the Babbo kitchen just because he felt like it--especially when his colleagues had been busting their balls for years (and were largely getting it right where he failed). The bits on Batali's life were interesting for a while, but those began to peter out, and I did like the food history well enough, but not enough to keep going. Also, why only Italian food? The only reason Buford cites as his concept for this book/experience, as I recall, was his being an avid amateur cook and wanted to see what it was like to work in a professional kitchen. Is it just because of his in with Batali? It seems that if he knew Batali, he must have known other chefs. Was it because Babbo was so prestigious? Was it because Batali was getting his ego stroked on the premise that Buford would be writing a piece on him for The New Yorker? Was Batali the only chef willing to let this guy in? And all this led to further fascination with the particulars of Italian food? Perhaps it's all revealed in the chapters I won't be reading.

Okay. When I picked up this book I thought I would love it because it is about cooking professionally (which always interests me). I did not realize I would love it because it's ultimate message is eating local, slow, hand made, small batch food is good!

On the journey through this book I was inspired to make homemade pasta, polenta from scratch and eat some good meat.

Loan from Joanna

I loved this book of the author’s passion for food. Bill Buford met over-the-top, intense, and famed Chef Mario Batali when he had the audacity to invite him to an intimate birthday dinner for a mutual friend. Chef Batali had an excessive passion for food and drink stimulating and feeding the appetites and thirsts of those who crossed his path or entered his restaurants. Mario had a tumultuous past, and his time spent in Italy made him realized that he loved real Italian food. Bill as an editor for 23 years, Editor of The New Yorker, and a literary guy, took the assignment to write about Mario and then to get into his kitchen. Bill was swept into Mario’s orbit, developed a competence to run a station, and then discovered the simple pleasures and happiness of making food.

“The difference between the home cook and the professional,” [Mario] said. “You’ll learn the reality of the restaurant kitchen. As a home cook, you can prepare anything any way any time. It doesn’t matter if your lamb is rare for your friends on Saturday and not so rare when they come back next year. Here people want exactly what they had last time. Consistency under pressure. And that’s the reality: a lot of pressure.” He thought for a moment. “You also develop an expanded kitchen awareness. You’ll discover how to use your senses. You’ll find you no longer rely on what your watch says. You’ll hear when something is cooked. You’ll smell degrees of doneness.” The kitchen was “a roomful of adrenaline addicts.” “Cooks work when others play.”

To really learn to cook and to find his style, he needed to be a slave to many chefs. He met Chef Marco Pierre White, who was known for his innovations, perfection for detail, love of food, and photographic memory. However, Bill realized that he lacked both Marco’s genius and Mario’s visual kitchen awareness because he was a word guy. In cooking, you are not reading or thinking, but are observing and imitating. The images and tasks being formed are more typical of a child than an adult.

I was fascinated to read how a restaurant kitchen works from the size, the chef and staff, the stations, the equipment, and the hierarchy. He learned the value of space, don’t leave it or you lose it, and to make money you do not throw food away. He created a visual and sensory place - the sweltering temperature of the kitchen, the heat of the ovens, the flaming pans and grills, the adrenaline rush, the sweat of the kitchen staff, team work madness, the chaos, and lack of space. He learned that cooking became rote as you learned the methods and you knew the measurements and readiness by feel. Working in unison under constant stress and long hours, the kitchen staff developed a camaraderie. To really learn, you needed to be in the kitchen. He learned to trust his senses. “Learning to cook meat was learning to be at ease with variation and improvisation, because meat was the tissue of a living creature, and each piece was different.” Heat changed the molecular structure of meat. He recommended to add pasta from its water as it becomes part of the sauce. He warned not to eat at a restaurant and order the last meal, because the kitchen staff are tired, hungry, and will loathe you.

Each chef had his own technique even in the same kitchen. He was advised, “Never challenge the person in charge, especially when he’s wrong, or he’ll make your life hell. He’ll pile on more orders than you can handle. He’ll find fault with everything. He’ll make you redo dishes that were cooked perfectly the first time.”

He traveled meeting people who had an impact on Mario from England’s notorious Check Marco Pierre White to the hills of Porretta Terme between Bologna and Florence.

Bill Buford was determined to learn the basics of Italian cooking, the hundreds of pastas, the innies and outies, and their clinging sauces. He explained that in making ragù, you take a piece of meat and “[cook] the shit out of the fucker.” Essentially, a meat with either a broth or wine are cooked over low heat until neither a solid nor liquid remain. I love Bolognese sauce and was intrigued to learn that it is as personal to the cook as the many varieties. I adored how one Italian described the dish as “profound and complex and touched something deep in his soul.” Another spoke of cooking the sauce provided a state of arousal until eaten.

My taste buds were salivating over his description of eating two pastas. “One was tortellini, small complicated knots of dough with a mysterious meaty stuffing. The other was a giant pillowy ravioli, distinguished by their thin, floppy lightness. I’d never had anything like them. They were dressed with butter and honey and filled with pumpkin, so that when you bit into one you experienced an unexpected taste explosion. The pumpkin, roasted and mixed with parmigiano cheese, was a mouthful of autumn: the equivalent of waking up and finding the leaves on the trees outside your window had changed color. The dish was called tortelli di zucca ...”

He rapturized over Italy’s first known cookbook, Liber de Coquina. I was amused to learn that the original 1465 edition included some cannabis recipes.

In Italy, each region has its own unique language describing the parts of a cow. To learn, you have to immerse yourself in the culture. Ultimately, his passion brought him to become an apprentice to master butcher Dario Cecchini in Panzano, Tuscany. Dario was not just a butcher, but an artist, who quoted Dante, sang, and sold to those he chose, and made what he wanted.
tttttttt
Well researched and packed with information that I took my time reading to absorb. This was not a quick but an intense read. There was so much information to grasp. Well written, it exudes his love and passion on learning how to cook. It was not easy. He was under intense pressure to be meticulous, precise, fast and repetitive where he could never be sick and never let the burns, cuts, or other injuries stop him. This talented writer described himself as a “journalist-tourist” infatuated with the kitchen mystique.

While I enjoy cooking, I would never be a professional chef. The hours and work are dreadful and the pressure insane. No sick days. No time off. I admire those hardworking professionals who are dedicate their lives to this work and who are paid so little. Made me hungry for good Italian food.

I liked this book, it was great to read during term time and with winter settling in. I loved thinking about pasta and meat in different ways even if I don’t eat meat ever ! It’s not intellectually difficult but more of an exploration that I think really is useful for thinking more deeply about cooking.

One of the last questions he poses is an economic one: at what point did the demand side of food take control of the supply ? He suggests that this theory is what has created mass produced food. It would be interesting to think more about this in terms of the Second World War, and the food production in the UK and US. I think there are tie ins with rewinding and the conservation literature more broadly.

Nothing annoys me more than when people tell me I should become a chef. Sure, I love to cook for my friends and loved ones, and I have a knack for it, but you know what I also love? Working 40-hour weeks, and having actual time to spend with said friends and loved ones.

So Bill Buford went full method and learned how to do all the little things, something I admire, immensely, and wrote about it in an exceptionally charming fashion. You learn a lot about people who are perhaps too passionate for their own good, complete with a portrait of Mario Batali as a man of many appetites that makes you realize that the later allegations shouldn't have been much of a shock.