Synopses & Reviews
Kitchens takes us into the robust, overheated, backstage world of the contemporary restaurant. In this rich, often surprising portrait of the real lives of kitchen workers, Gary Alan Fine brings their experiences, challenges, and satisfactions to colorful life. He provides a riveting exploration of how restaurants actually work, both individually and as part of a larger culinary culture. Working conditions, time constraints, market forces, and aesthetic goals all figure into the food served to customerswho often don't know quite what they're getting.
The kitchen is a place of constant compromise, of quirks, approximations, dirty tricks, surprises, and short cuts, as Fine demonstrates in his deft, readable narrative. He brings to life the complicated relationships among kitchen workersservers, dishwashers, pantry workers, managers, restaurant critics, and customersand reveals the effects of organizational structure on individual relations.
Review
"Oozes with first-hand accounts of pranks and mishaps. . . . Fine's book entertains as it enlightens."--North By Northwestern
Review
"Oozes with first-hand accounts of pranks and mishaps. . . . Fine's book entertains as it enlightens."--North By Northwestern
Synopsis
"From the raw to the cooked,
Kitchens takes us inside the fascinating world of restaurant work. But be prepared. Abandon preconceptions all ye who enter, for here's an original and important peek into the patois, the pecking order, the profits, and the people who produce what we eat when we eat out. . . . A real by-the-book example of superior occupational sociology, as it was meant to be."Rob Faulkner, University of Massachusetts
"A carefully researched, brilliantly analyzed and elegantly described study of a major American industry. His negotiated order and combined interactional-structural approach is a model for sociological industries and organizations."Anselm Strauss, University of California, San Francisco
Synopsis
Kitchens takes us into the robust, overheated, backstage world of the contemporary restaurant. In this rich, often surprising portrait of the real lives of kitchen workers, Gary Alan Fine brings their experiences, challenges, and satisfactions to colorful life. A new preface updates this riveting exploration of how restaurants actually work, both individually and as part of a larger culinary culture.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-291) and index.
About the Author
Gary Alan Fine is Professor of Sociology at the University of Georgia and the author of With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture (1987), among other books.