'I always love shaking hands with a chef,' he went on. 'A lot of us,' he added, 'find scars sexy and attractive.' 'The guiding philosophy is not what makes you feel better, but when will I be back?' he said. He has seen lemon squeezed into cuts to disinfect them, and wounds wrapped in caul fat. Cooks have a saying, he said, that until a knife tastes blood, it is not really one’s own.

Care to know why? Keep reading.Īlong the way, Bourdain acquired cuts, scars and calluses he wears with pride. 'Maybe they should visit a chicken ranch.' He says America’s favorite menu item may also make you ill. 'Pigs are filthy animals, say some, when explaining why they deny themselves the delights of pork,' writes Bourdain. If you have the stomach for it, however, you will learn why you should never order fish on a Monday (it’s old), why you should avoid seafood medleys and the like on brunch menus (it’s stuff the chef is trying to use up) and why it may not be a good idea to order mussels unless you know the chef personally (one bad one and there’s hell to pay). Call it the underbelly of the book’s subtitle, and if you shock easily, this fascinating tale may not be for you. It was also the beginning of a culinary odyssey that took him to a dishwashing job in Provincetown, Mass., where Bourdain admired the cooks who had 'style and swagger,' seemed afraid of nothing and carried big knives, 'which they kept honed and sharpened to a razor’s edge.' He wanted that world, and eventually, with stops in a lot of kitchens, he got it.Īlong the way, there was 'fornication, free booze and ready access to drugs,' writes Bourdain. It tasted of seawater … of brine and flesh … and somehow … of the future.' 'And in that unforgettably sweet moment in my personal history,' he writes, 'I attained glory.' Bourdain took the 'glistening, vaguely sexual- looking object, still dripping and nearly alive.' He tilted the shell back into his mouth and 'with one bite and a slurp, wolfed it down.

Kitchen confidential