Kitchens: The Culture of Restaurant Work41452

cover title author publisher isbn10 | asin print isbn13 ebook isbn13 language subject publication date lcc ddc subject : : : : : : : : : : : next page > Kitchens : The Culture of Restaurant Work Fine, Gary Alan University of California Press 0520200780 9780520200784 9780585299792 English Kitchen Social aspects, Cooks Social life and customs 1996 TX653.F57 1996eb 305.9/642 Kitchen Social aspects, Cooks Social life and customs cover next page > < previous page page_iii next page > Page iii Kitchens The Culture of Restaurant Work Gary Alan Fine < previous page page_iii next page > < previous page page_iv next page > Page iv University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd London, England © 1996 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fine, Gary Alan Kitchens: the culture of restaurant work/ Gary Alan Fine p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-520-20077-2 (alk paper).ISBN 0-520-20078-0 (pbk.: alk paper) KitchenSocial aspects CooksSocial life and customs I Title TX653.F57 1995 305.9 642dc20 94-49673 CIP Printed in the United States of America 98765432 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 The publisher gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint parts of several chapters of the present work: Chapter 1: Reprinted from Current Research on Occupations and Professions (1987): 141158, "Working Cooks: The Dynamics of Professional Kitchens," by Gary Alan Fine, with the permission of JAI Press, Inc., Greenwich, Connecticut Chapter 2: Reprinted from Social Forces 69:1 (1990): 95114, "Organizational Time: Temporal Demands and the Experience of Work in Restaurant Kitchens," by Gary Alan Fine © 1990 by The University of North Carolina Press Chapter 6: Reprinted from American Journal of Sociology 97:6 (1992): 12681294, "The Culture of Production: Aesthetic Choices and Constraints in Culinary Work," by Gary Alan Fine © 1992 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved Chapter 7: Reprinted from Theory and Society 24/2 (1995): 245269, "Wittgenstein's Kitchen: Sharing Meaning in Restaurant Work," by Gary Alan Fine © 1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers Reprinted by permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers < previous page page_iv next page > < previous page page_v next page > Page v To Graham Tomlinson and Hans Haferkamp, their absence lessens my life, my sociology, and my table < previous page page_v next page > < previous page page_vii next page > Page vii Contents Preface ix Introduction Chapter Living the Kitchen Life 17 Chapter Cooks' Time: Temporal Demands and the Experience of Work 54 Chapter The Kitchen as Place and Space 80 Chapter The Commonwealth of Cuisine 112 Chapter The Economical Cook: Organization as Business 138 Chapter Aesthetic Constraints 177 Chapter The Aesthetics of Kitchen Discourse 199 Chapter The Organization and Aesthetics of Culinary Life 219 Appendix Ethnography in the Kitchen: Issues and Cases 233 Notes 255 References 267 Index 293 < previous page page_vii next page > < previous page page_ix next page > Page ix Preface Eroticism is the most intense of passions while Gastronomy is the most extended Although both are made up of combinations and connectionsbodies and substancesin Love the number of combinations is limited and pleasure tends to climax in an instant while in Gastrosophy the number of combinations is infinite; pleasure, instead of tending toward concentration, tends to propagate and extend itself through taste and savoring Octavio Paz Gender roles ensnare us all In the early years of my marriage, when my wife and I were graduate students, she did the housework When, at last, we both obtained "real jobs," she insisted that I assume more responsibilities Like many males who share household tasks, I chose those that permitted the most freedom, creativity, and personal satisfaction: I decided to learn to cook Of all chores, cooking seemed least onerous But, even so, that justification was not sufficient; I needed a rationale to avoid "wasting" time in the kitchentransforming life into work, just as my work was leisure As a sociologist interested in art, I could learn to cook and observe professional cooks, a group that had not been examined ethnographically I cannily transformed household chores into professional engagement My cooking skills expanded to where I enjoyed eating what I had cooked: no small achievement in view of those first hot, harsh evenings at the stove Finally I had learned enough that I would not be thought hopelessly and laughably inept if I shared space with professional cooks At that point I took a giant step from my kitchen into the "real world" of the food production industry I decided to learn how students learn and are taught to cook professionally I received permission from two state-run technical-vocational institutes in the Twin Cities metropoli- < previous page page_ix next page > < previous page page_x next page > Page x tan area to observe their cooking programs I was accepted, even welcomed I attended one almost every day and became reasonably proficient in the skills that entry-level cooks must acquire, becoming socialized to the tricks of the trade I developed a theory of the development of occupational aesthetics My experiences at these schools led to restaurant kitchens I was welcomed cordially and hopefully, and I was given access that permitted me to explore organizational culture and structure, grounded in interactionist and interpretivist sociology My informants were convinced that the world outside the kitchen walls did not understand their working conditions and did not appreciate their skills or the pressures and troubles they experienced They believed that the public thought of them as drunken and loud, as bums Most cooks were pleased that a fair academic outsider would tell the truth about them or would at least experience their working conditions It is widely accepted in the kitchens of academe that there is no one truth While my views are my own, I hope to present one set of truths about cooks that will be close enough for them to recognize, even if I don't mirror what any one of them believes I hope, like Paul Stoller (1989), to capture some of the sensory conditions of work and provide, to borrow his title, "the taste of ethnographic things," not among the distant Songhay of Niger but among the cooks of Minnesota My observations in trade schoolcollegiums bureaucrats now label "technical colleges," mirroring a desire to professionalize everything (Wilensky 1964)taught me how the children of blue-collar workers become socialized to a career that demands knowledge of arenas of cultural capital ("taste") to which they have not been exposed Yet, these data ended at the job market: what did these young men and women when actually employed by an industrial organization? My observation of four restaurant kitchens allowed me to find out In each restaurant I spent a month watching, taking notes, asking questions, and, when needed, stringing beans, washing potatoes, and performing minor chores I was never a cook, but I was, occasionally, an empty pair of hands In each setting described in the appendix, observations were supplemented by in-depth interviews As a matter of "field ethics," I ate those dishes that cooks graciously placed before me to demonstrate their culinary virtuosity, to celebrate my role in their community, and, perhaps, by forcing me to accept their hospitality, to make it more difficult to criticize them I gained about ten pounds during each month that I spent observing The two < previous page page_x next page > < previous page page_xi next page > Page xi months' interval between each month of observations permitted me to acquire a critical perspective on the data and work myself into shape Those scholars who choose research projects of which others dream must face a cordial professional jealousy; these collegial critics forget the long hours, the sweat, and the filth: it's a dirty job, but I challenged myself to it Sociologists and friends assisted me in shaping this research by providing ideas, comments, criticism, or simply fellowship as I talked and ate Specifically I thank Howard S Becker, Harold Bershady, Charles Bosk, Terry Clark, George Dickie, Robert Faulkner, Priscilla Ferguson, William Finlay, Joseph Galaskiewicz, Wendy Griswold, Jay Gubrium, Hans Haferkamp, Janet Harris, Mark Haugan, Lori Holyfield, Thomas Hood, Sherryl Kleinman, Michal McCall, Richard Mitchell, Harvey Molotch, Richard Peterson, Charles Stevens, Robert Sutton, Doris Taub, Richard Taub, Graham Tomlinson, and John Young I am grateful to colleagues at colloquia at Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, the University of Georgia, and Emory University for challenging me on critical points Pam Chase and Cathy Rajtar helped to transcribe the interviews quoted in this volume Hilda Daniels, Gloria DeWolfe, and Clara Roesler helped in typing the manuscript, particularly before the time that I acquired word-processing skills I am grateful to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for providing an environment in which I could complete this text, and grateful for financial support provided by National Science Foundation grant SBR-9022192 Warm appreciation is also due to my wife, Susan, and sons, Todd and Peter, for sometimes eating what I cooked I am deeply grateful to Naomi Schneider and her colleagues at the University of California Press for providing a hospitable home for this volume As is customary and right, I reserve my special thanks for those individuals I cannot name, who let me intrude into their lives and kitchens I hope that I have managed to capture a taste of their tasks and the environment in which they labor PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA SEPTEMBER 1994 < previous page page_xi next page > < previous page page_1 next page > Page Introduction What is patriotism but the love of the good things we ate in our childhood Lin Yutang Food reveals our souls Like Marcel Proust reminiscing about a madeleine or Calvin Trillin astonished at a plate of ribs, we are entangled in our meals The connection between identity and consumption gives food a central role in the creation of community, and we use our diet to convey images of public identity (Bourdieu 1984; MacClancy 1992) The routinization of feeding is one of the central requirements of families (DeVault 1991) and other social systems The existence of profit-making organizations to process and serve food reveals something crucial about capitalist, industrial society As is true for mills, foundries, and hospitals, the growth of restaurantsthe hospitality industryis implicated in the economic changes in the West in the past two centuries Given their ubiquity and our frequency of contact with them, restaurants represent the apotheosis of free-market capitalism, production lines, a consumption economy, and interorganizational linkages The production, service, and consumption of food is a nexus of central sociological constructsorganization, resources, authority, community, rhetoric, gender, and status Yet, for all their potential allure, restaurants have rarely been studied sociologically (but see Whyte 1946; Gross 1958; Hannon and Freeman 1989) Cooks, despite continual, though mediated, contact in our quotidian lives, are invisible workers in occupational sociology While wishing to capture the flavor of this work environment, I have equally salient theoretical aims I wish to present an organiza- < previous page page_1 next page > < previous page page_2 next page > Page tional sociology that is grounded in interactionist and cultural concerns, but does justice to the reality of the organization and the equal, insistent reality of the environment outside the organization Alan Wolfe (1991) labels my generation of organizational ethnographers the "new institutionalists" (see Dimaggio and Powell 1991) These scholars look behind the generalizations and abstractions of institutional theory to examine how institutions operate in practice While I first heard the term used by Wolfe, the moniker captures part of the impetus for this volume Through my ethnography I present a perspective that accounts for features of the organizational literature (e.g., Scott 1992) while remaining true to the lived experiences of workers who labor behind the kitchen door An interactionist approach need not eschew organizational and system constraints, and can address the political economy In the past two decades, while embracing the basic precepts of an interpretivist perspective, I have confronted questions that had often been left to structural sociologists This book explores several features of organizational sociology, providing some basis for future research The font of my analysis is the negotiated order perspective: that approach to the interactionist understanding of organizations pioneered by Anselm Strauss and his colleagues from the University of Chicago, such as Donald Roy and Howard Becker, some three decades ago (Colomy and Brown 1995) Strauss's studies of psychiatric hospitals (Strauss et al 1963; Strauss et al 1964)3 are classics and contribute to an ongoing research project (e.g., Corbin and Strauss 1993) The most detailed treatment of this approach, which expands it beyond the confines of a single work setting, is found in Strauss's Negotiations (1978), in which he develops a theory of organization and structural negotiations While Strauss did not emphasize the impact of external forces and social constraints in shaping trajectories of work and did not provide a single detailed case, his theory provides a base for any interactionist examination of organizations Strauss is at pains to explain the flexibility within organizations and the conditions under which this flexibility is likely to appear Others have expanded the negotiated order approach (Maines 1977; Fine 1984), examining it in a variety of empirical arenas (see Farberman 1975; Denzin 1977; Kleinman 1982; Levy 1982; Lynxwiler, Shover, and Clelland 1983; Hosticka 1979; Mesler 1989) and demonstrating how negotiation pervades a range of organizational and institutional environments The negotiated order approach represents one of several theoretical apparatuses that at- < previous page page_2 next page > U.S economy as aided by, 96 Restaurants: alcohol as central to culture of, 129; activities most associated with, 98; artistic character of, 13-14; capitalism as represented by, 8-11, 36; as communities, 112-37; cost-cutting techniques of, 164-68; costs as met by, 158-68, 188-90; cultural significance of, 11; customers as crucial to, 142-52; history of, 4-6; internal structure of, 156-76; market niches established by, 145, 146-47, 152, 155, 177, 188, 191, 192, 263; media relations as experienced by, 152-56; migration as influence on, 5-6; operational schedules of, 57-58; organizational ecology of, 10, 141-42, 143, 188, 219; organization of work as controlled by, 22-23; as organizations, 138-76, 220, 221; pricing as managed by, 156-68, 188; primary goal of, 256; processing of food as controlled by, 59-60; reputations of, 191-92; reservations as control mechanism of, 142-43; routine grounds in, 20-21, 160; rush periods in, 64-65, 104; as service and production units, 19, 101, 138; time as structured in, 55-56, 58-59, 60, 103-6; wages paid by, 161-63 Reusing, restaurant costs as controlled by, 166-67 < previous page page_300 next page > < previous page page_301 next page > Page 301 Revenge, in restaurant work, 124, 154; customers as victims of, 125-26, 151-52 Reviews, restaurants as affected by, 152-56 Revolution, French, 5, 6, 160 Rhetoric, occupational: cooperation as reflected in, 38; culinary integrity as preserved by, 184; problems generated by, 113-14 See also Aesthetic discourse Rhythm: customer demands as obstacle to, 67; of optimal days, 71; organizational time as linked to, 55, 56, 60, 63, 77, 78; of organizations, 77-78; of rush period, 64, 66; slow days as obstacle to, 70; Role distancing, 133, 235 Roman civilization, cuisine in, Routine activities: building blocks of, 77-78; in kitchens, 17-19, 60-63, 67-72, 160 Roy, Donald, 2, 255 Rush periods, in kitchen work, 64-67, 77, 80, 104, 121, 258 S Sabotage, interpersonal, by kitchen workers, 87, 151-52 St Paul, Minn., restaurant industry in, 155, 216, 247 Salaries, of cooks, 161-63, 262 Salmon, ivory See Ivory salmon Salmon sorbise, 205 Samoa, 233 San Francisco, Calif., 214 Sanitation, in restaurants, 33, 35-36, 256 Sarcasm, as organizational behavior, 175 Sardi, Vincent, 88 Scott, W Richard, 87 Seafood, 143; cost of, 166; preparation of, 73 Segmentation: of aesthetic production, 190-94, 196-97, 214; occupational, 190-91, 196-97, 257 Sense, meaning as related to, 201 Senses: aesthetic discourse as related to, 200, 201, 202-3, 217; aesthetic production as related to, 178-82, 193; ethnographic consciousness of, 239-40 Sequence, organizational time as linked to, 55, 56, 61-62, 65, 77, 78 Servers, 98-110; autonomy as issue for, 100, 107-8, 108-9; cooks as controlled by, 105-6, 110; cooks as viewed by, 16, 19-20, 99; customers as treated by, 100-102, 104-5, 146, 150, 151, 185; customer satisfaction as key to, 99-100, 101, 102; occupational domain of, 108-9; perks as provided by, 109; pricing as viewed by, 156, 157; spatial constraints as experienced by, 82, 109; status of, 80, 89, 98; synchronization as aided by, 60-62; tipping as viewed by, 102-3, 149, 156 Service industries: audiences common to, 27; customers as treated by, 31, 56-57, 147; restaurants as, 19 Shared understandings: of food preparation, 209-11; meaning as dependent upon, 199, 217-18, 229; taste and smell as challenge to, 203, 205 Short cuts, in restaurant work, 23, 27-30 Similes, taste of food as described by, 207 Simmons, John, 109 Situatedness: of kitchen work, 66, 71-72, 111, 132-33, 189; of organizations, 176; of work, 179 Slammed periods, in restaurants, 64 Slow days, in kitchen work, 69-70 Smell: doneness of food tested by, 75; as secondary sense, 203-5 Smoke, in kitchen work, 83 Smoking, by kitchen workers, 127 Smoothness, in kitchen work, 66, 71, 101, 110, 111, 137 Snyder, Jerome, 154 Social control, in restaurant industry, 58, 106, 111, 112, 168-75, 183, 193, 198 Socialism, restaurants as representative of, Social networks, 214-15; culinary careers as influenced by, 46-47, 135-36, 261 Social reproduction theories, 257 Socialization, 45-53; professionalizing process in, 49-53; shared knowledge as central to, 211; tricks of trade as, 30 Sociolects, culinary understandings as grounded in, 218 Sociology: aesthetic discourse as interpreted by, 177, 199, 200-201, 263 See also specific methodologies Sole turban, preparation of, 188, 263 Soltner, André, 147, 202 Sound, doneness of food tested by, 76-77 < previous page page_301 next page > < previous page page_302 next page > Page 302 Soups, preparation of, 26 Spatial constraints, in kitchen work, 81-82, 108-9, 159, 246, 249, 251, 252 Specials, pricing of, 156, 157, 167 Speech acts, aesthetic discourse as related to, 200, 201 Spicy Chinese food, popularization of, 154 Stan's Steakhouse, 249-51; culinary environment represented by, 15, 144-45, 249-50; head cook in, 250, 258; location of, 159, 249; operational schedules of, 57; spatial constraints in, 251; staff of, 250-51 Statistical Abstracts 1990, 139 Status, in kitchen work, 80, 92-98, 130, 192-93, 260; competence as mark, of, 93-94, 170; humor as connected with, 122, 124, 125; industry label as mark of, 256; knives as mark of, 83-84; tasks as mark of, 92-93 Status claims, kitchen roles as linked to, 96 Steak, 144, 156, 180; preparation of, 31, 152, 256 Stealing, by kitchen workers, 127 Stern, Jane and Michael, Stereotypes, of kitchen work, 98, 127, 128 Stock, preparation of, 25-26 Stoller, Paul, 233, 239 Stoves, 83, 84 Strauss, Anselm, 2, 4, 222 Street, Julian, Structural sociology, 2, 14, 219 Structure: of cultural industries, 139; communication as path to, 108; environment as control mechanism in, 80-81; flexibility as institutional to, 37-38, 61, 104; negotiation as affected by, 2-4, 12, 21, 220, 221; occupational, 80-111; organizational differences as controlled by, 16; production as control mechanism in, 59-60; time as control mechanism in, 55, 56, 58-59, 60, 77, 79, 223-24 See also Organizations Subcultural knowledge, 50, 65, 133; authority as connected to, 192, 210, 211; cook-server friction as connected with, 107-8; kitchen worker-management friction as connected with, 169-70; tricks of the trade as, 23, 30-32 See also Aesthetic discourse Suburban Technical Vocational Institute, 242 Symbolic interactionism, 112, 142, 219 Synchronization, organizational time as linked to, 56, 59, 60-62, 77 Szechuan restaurants, 154 T Taillevant, M., 5, 255 Talk: aesthetic function of, 199-202; about food, 202-3; social construction of, 230 See also Aesthetic discourse Tang dynasty, Tasks, kitchen status as marked by, 92-93 Taste, cultural: class or status as connected with, 200; critics as makers of, 154; restaurants as catering to, 144-45 Taste, as secondary sense, 203-5 Taste of Ethnographic Things, The (Stoller), 233 Taste of food, 202, 203-9; doneness as tested by, 75; ethnographic research and, 239-41; marketplace costs as influence on, 165-66 Taverns, 255 Teasing, in kitchen activities, 119, 120-22 Tempo: customer demands as obstacle to, 67; of organizations, 77-79; organizational time as linked to, 55, 56, 60; of rush period, 64, 66 Temporal control, cook-server friction in battle for, 103-6 Temporal cues, worker expectations as linked to, 63 Temporal niches, worker autonomy as regained by, 55, 63, 96, 224, 257 Temporal windows, acceptability of food in, 73, 258 Tension, in kitchen work: division of labor as cause of, 38-39, 102-3, 105-6; interoccupational, 98-99, 102-3, 107-8, 225; status-related, 130, 170, 260 Theatre, cooking compared with, 60 Third places, socializing activities in, 115 Thomas, W.I., 221 Thomas Aquinas, Saint, 204 Tickets, for restaurant orders, 61, 104-5, 257; pranks played with, 124-25 Time, 54-79; aesthetic production as constrained by, 186-87, 195-96; organizational, 77-79; restaurant work as bounded by, 12; as sociological construct, 223-24, 257; status as connected to use of, 91, 96 Timing: organizational time as linked to, 55, 56; in processing of food, 59-60, 61-62, 69, 72-77, 103-6 < previous page page_302 next page > < previous page page_303 next page > Page 303 Tipping, in restaurants, 98, 101, 102-3, 145, 149, 152, 156, 260 Touch, doneness of food tested by, 76 Trade schools; cooking as taught in, 16, 51-52, 216; cooking career as facilitated by, 46, 134 Tricks of the trade, in restaurant work, 23, 30-32 Trillin, Calvin, Triumphs, occupational, 263 Trust: customers and workers as connected by, 147, 148; in ethnographic research, 234-35, 237-38; humor as dependent upon, 122, 124 Turf wars, in kitchen work, 98-99, 102-3 Twin Cities, Minn., restaurant industry in, 143-44, 155, 164, 214, 240-53 U Underdistancing, in temporal routines, 67 Underside of work, 23-24, 126, 234 Unions, kitchen workers as represented by, 172-74 United Fruit company, 163 Upper middle class, restaurants as viewed by, 140 V Viandier, Le (Taillevant), 255 Vietnamese restaurants, Visual sense, cultural privileging of, 203 W Wages, of kitchen workers, 161-63 Waiters See Servers Waldemar, Carla, 53 Walker, Charles, 263 Waters, Alice, 7, 112, 116 Western culture: aesthetic discourses as deficient in, 217; sensory experiences as differentiated in, 202-4; visual sense as privileged in, 239 White Tower franchise, Wholesalers, food, 165 Whyte, William Foote, 92-93, 251 Willan, Anne, 52 Winegar, Karin, 154 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 201, 202 Wolfe, Alan, Women, as cooks, 241 Work, occupational: aesthetic discourse in, 200; aesthetic vs instrumental aspects of, 229-30; aesthetic production in, 177-79, 182, 183, 186, 190, 193, 194-98; audience demands in, 27; autonomy and control as issues in, 168-69, 198, 224; cooperation as central tenet of, 39; definition of, 13; deviance as part of, 116-17, 234; domain politics in, 108-9; error as permissible in, 26-27, 31; friendships in, 115; identity in, 217, 227; interoccupational tension in, 99, 102-3, 108, 225; manipulation of place and colleagues as integral to, 111; manual laborers vs professionals in, 95, 96; memory as structured in, 86; negotiation framework in, 4; organizational environment of, 80-81, 176; participant observation study of, 233-39; perks as symbolic recompense in, 110; public attitudes towards, 41-42; principles associated with, 36, 79; routine tasks in, 78; segmentation of, 190-91, 196-97, 257; social situatedness of, 179; teasing as endemic at, 122; temporal boundaries in, 63; time as experienced in, 54-55, 56, 77-79, 195-96, 223-24; timing as managed by, 74; underside of, 23-32, 126, 234 See also Kitchens; Restaurants Working class, kitchen staff as, 216, 242 Workplaces: as communities, 112, 113, 136-37, 226-27; emotional ideology of, 130, 136-37, 224, 225-26; expressive vs instrumental views of, 225; organizational perspective on, 219; teasing in, 120-21 Y Yuppies, as restaurant customers, 144, 155, 257 < previous page page_303 next page > < previous page page_305 next page > Page 305 Gary Alan Fine is Professor of Sociology at the University of Georgia and the author of ten previous books Photo by John Sheretz < previous page page_305 next page > < previous page page_307 Page 307 Compositor: ComCom Text: 10/13 Sabon Display: Sabon Printer: Haddon Craftsmen Binder: Haddon Craftsmen < previous page page_307 ... discussing the place of the occupation in the organization and the economy The rhythms of work create and are created by the structure of the workplace The experienced reality of a job consists of its... examine the forms of this aesthetic constraint In a restaurant, cooks must be aware of the demands placed on them by standards of customer taste, constraints of time, and the economics of the restaurant. .. the chef holds the sliced meat away from the light" (Field notes, Blakemore Hotel) These techniques ease the life of the cook, without, in theory, affecting the taste of the food Of course, the