Jonathan Dixon is an old man of 38 when he decides that he is tired of wandering aimlessly through life. The path before him has become clear. He wants to be a Chef and the best way to get there runs through the Culinary Institute of America.
For the most part, the CIA is a place for the honing of skills and the refining of talents. Those that sign up without any practical experience in a working kitchen find it all a bit overwhelming. Being a Professional Chef is not for everyone.
Beaten, Seared, and Sauced: On Becoming a Chef at The Culinary Institute of America follows Johnathan Dixon from the moment he is accepted until the last time he pulls out of the student parking lot. In between we watch as he is yelled at, injured, overwhelmed, confused, and embittered. He is also inspired, enlightened, and expanded far beyond his initial ideas about what it means to cook and serve food. Then he is yelled at some more.
The spirit of Gordon Ramsey is alive and well at the CIA, but there are softer voices as well. Jon wonders why so many of the Instructors like screaming and demoralizing the students when a handful of his Instructors are kind and patient and inspire loyalty through guidance instead of intimidation. In many of the classes it doesn’t seem to matter what the Instructor is like, there is just so much information to absorb in so short a time that it seems impossible that anyone can take it all in.
Jonathan finds that much of the CIA is like practicing scales, he doesn’t expect to master Mexican cooking in two weeks, but he does expect to add a few notes to his repertoire.
The stories are intense and amazing. For anyone, like me, who has thought of going to Culinary School, this is a must read. The work, the hours, the dangers, and the lifestyle of being around great cooks and lousy cooks is instructional. There is also a lot of info about having to do things that are not always fun or interesting. I decided long ago that all the yelling was not for me. And in the end, so does Jonathan. His future is not inside restaurant walls, but he still has plans that center around food.
Beaten, Seared, and Sauced is a great book. It’s the story of a real person trying his best to become something that is, at times, just beyond his grasp. This is a whole different feel from so many memoirs where we are given the impression that the person was born to become something-that it was always their destiny to arrive where they did. Here we see that the journey is a little more difficult for some than for others.
Jonathan Dixon’s book didn’t make me want to go the CIA, but it did make me want to read Escoffier and Keller and compare the two. It also made me want to up my game when it comes to cutting an onion.
