Making It

Success in the Commercial Kitchen

By Ellen T. Meiser

Rutgers University Press

The restaurant industry is one of the few places in America where workers from lower-class backgrounds can rise to positions of power and prestige. Yet with over four million cooks and food-preparation workers employed in America’s restaurants, not everyone makes it to the high-status position of chef. What factors determine who rises the ranks in this fiercely competitive pressure-cooker environment?

Making It explores how the career path of restaurant workers depends on their accumulation of kitchen capital, a cultural asset based not only on their ability to cook but also on how well they can fit into the workplace culture and negotiate its hierarchical structures. After spending 120 hours working in a restaurant kitchen and interviewing fifty chefs and cooks from fine-dining establishments and greasy-spoon diners across the country, sociologist Ellen Meiser discovers many strategies for accumulating kitchen capital. For some, it involves education and the performance of expertise; others climb the ranks by controlling their own emotions or exerting control over coworkers. Making It offers a close and personal look at how knowledge, power, and interpersonal skills come together to determine who succeeds and who fails in the high-pressure world of the restaurant kitchen.

Making It takes an in-depth view into the concept of success: how it is defined, redefined, and achieved in a fast-paced, competitive career. An appealing read both to those who are in the industry, as well as those who fantasize about being part of the culinary industry. Deborah A. Harris, co-author of Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen

Meiser’s fascinating analysis of cooks and chefs in commercial kitchens highlights how those who ‘make it’ have accumulated ‘kitchen capital,’ including the skills, proper emotions, and stoicism necessary to navigate the stress and competitiveness of the kitchen hierarchy.’
Patti Giuffre, co-author of Taking the Heat: Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen

ELLEN T. MEISER is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Her articles have appeared in such journals as Gastronomica and Qualitative Sociology. She cohosts the sociology podcast The Social Breakdown.

Dramatis Personae
Introduction
1 Setting the Table
2 Learning How to “Make It”
3 Embodied Skills: Movement, Scars, and Taste
4 Emotions in the Heat of the Kitchen
5 Dominating Others
6 Well, Have You Made It?
Appendix: Research Methods
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index

Related Titles