The Foul Aftertaste of Abuse

I’ve been thinking a lot about this one line in the book The Coloniality of Modern Taste by Zilkia Janer: “Gastronomy, as bourgeois taste culture, was born under an imperative of relative restraint if not mediocrity.” Janer calling modern gastronomy, as the kids say, “mid,” might piss off chefs of a certain rank (you know the kind), but her critique isn’t histrionic. It’s historical. 

In the book, she documents how the codes of fine dining were forged in the fire of post-French Revolution politics, capitalism, and imperialism, resulting in a “downgraded, easy-to-replicate version of French aristocratic cuisine” meant for the less sophisticated new bourgeois class. In the next century, Georges-Auguste Escoffier developed the ultimate apparatus for replication — the brigade system — which militarized the functions of the kitchen. Through strict division of labor and a tiered management structure, Escoffier's brigade aimed to minimize chaos and guarantee uniformity in every plate of cuisses de nymphes à l’aurore that left his pass.

The brigade became the blueprint for acclaimed fine dining establishments in the century that followed. And it remains the norm even today. But as in most hierarchical systems, it doesn’t just facilitate abuse, it formalizes it. The presence of such tyranny in these kitchens and the trauma it inflicts is not new news, yet we keep circling in a Groundhog Day loop of allegations, pearl-clutching, and “now what?”. 

So the question remains: Does abuse really produce good food? Must one survive the coal walk of torment to become a good chef?