Shrink in the Kitchen

No joke: Mario Batali has one: “Food Flippin’ Mario Batali Tin Wind-up Action Toy.”

More on the way, to paraphrase Notorious B.I.G., “For certain, hit you while you’re workin’.”

The great thing about the whole celebrity thang and chefs is that it creates a cult of authority.  Hence, the phrase: über-Chef, which has been popping up in reference to some guy who works long hours, writes great recipes, can cook faster and better than most, and is able to get line cooks to do what he tells them night after night for, on average, $21,000 a year.

Line cook screws up?

“I vas only following orders!”

“Keine Entschuldigung!”

It’s gets even cooler: Being a celebrity implies that what that person does is beyond ordinary ability.  It disenfranchises home cooks, makes Grandma’s veal chop in tomato sauce (From East New York, Brooklyn, My Granma Rae’s signature dish) less celebrated, and feeds into the consumer culture that, until recently, fueled the U.S. economy.

Credit has dried up, expect fewer restaurant bookings.

But what Paul Newman said in response about celebrity and his fidelity–”Why eat hamburger out when there’s steak at home?”–applies to so-called celebrity chefs.

Frankly, many celebrity chefs, and I’ve interviewed them all on radio or for print, are bemused by being identified as celebrities.  It’s not their idea, it’s not even an idea.  It’s a marketing strategy developed by Mad Men (and Mad Women) who don’t see food the way the French or Italian do.  Those folks love their chefs, but don’t put them above artists.

Look, it’s easier to eat than write or paint or talk about the theatre.

I still think often of what Thomas Keller told me years ago: “I think they made us celebrities because they ran out of professions.  You know me.  Do I look like a celebrity to you?  I’d still be working in the restaurant without all the attention.  I’m grateful for it, but it’s not why I cook.”