"Juan, the sixtyish day broiler man, a fierce,
trash talking Basque who, I swear, I saw
one time sewing up a very bad wound on his hand
- right on the line - with and sewing needle
and thread, muttering all the while, as he
pushed through the flaps of skin with the
point, ' I am a tough... mother fucker'"
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Boudain (2oo2)
Any chef, you will met, or have had the misfortune to met, will regale stories of injuries; burns, cuts and such. And fair enough, the Kitchen is a busy, hot and very dangerous place. However the good chef resembles a top flight footballer, shimmy, sidestep, spin, cook and score.
KNIFE
Many times in the wrong frame of mind, the chef and the knife have a frisson. Depending on the wound, the chef on a busy service with no cover for his section, is excepted to be back on service as soon as possible. The amount of commis chefs at the first sign of blood, turn a whiter shade of white. When a finger is hanging, we are talking hospital. But less and we are talking one minute bandaging and back the line, the front line. For all those not down with the lingo of pro kitch, the line is the production line of a service kitchen.
PANS, OIL AND STEAM
With fryers, chauffants (pots of boiling water), Large Char-grills, Flat Tops (Large flat extremely hot metal surfaces) and double fronted ovens with hot pans in, there is a variety of thing to burn and scold yourself on. And invariably when working in a kitchen, you will get some war scares. Some chefs will show off their scares, however the shrewd chef learns as quickly as possible to not stop these painful occurrences. Psychologically, there is an amount of pathos, that the chef wishes to inspire in the audience of this cornicopia of marks and scares.Its the chefs choice to put themelves under the duress of the kitchen, don't pity them. One chef that I previously worked with had a star tip, keeping a oven cloth kept folded in the belly of your apron to hand when needed. or you might end up having a hand looking like fried chicken.
One Chef, we shall call him Chef White!!! was reported to have had the following happen, reported in The Post,
'White was demonstrating a flaming Sambuca
trick to pals, the burning booze spilled on
his shirt and the table. In the ensuing
group effort to extinguish the flames,
several champagne flutes and wine glasses
were broken and White "was accidentally
stabbed in the hand," our source said. "Blood
went everywhere but he didn't want to go
to the hospital . . . very macho." White stuck
his hand in a bucket of ice water, wrapped it with
some napkins and was put in a cab.'
Sadly, Chef White was so in tune with his kitchen that he forgot about the the rest of the world. Habitually the chef becomes accustom to the pitfalls of the kitchen, both physical and something that we shall touch upon in the next couple of blogs , the mental.trick to pals, the burning booze spilled on
his shirt and the table. In the ensuing
group effort to extinguish the flames,
several champagne flutes and wine glasses
were broken and White "was accidentally
stabbed in the hand," our source said. "Blood
went everywhere but he didn't want to go
to the hospital . . . very macho." White stuck
his hand in a bucket of ice water, wrapped it with
some napkins and was put in a cab.'
Ta ra a bit Chavvies (Goodbye Kids)
