Salt, Sweat and Steam: The Fiery Education of an Accidental Chef

Food writer Washington (Caribbean Flavors for Every Season) takes a blistering look at America’s most prestigious culinary school in this vivid memoir. In 2009, the author, then in her 20s, was working for free as a pantry chef at a restaurant in Raleigh, N.C., when its owner, recognizing her talent, encouraged her to apply to the Culinary Institute of America. Washington arrived at the program’s stately campus in Upstate New York and found a hypercompetitive environment filled with state-of-the-art equipment, instructors who demanded militarylike uniformity, and a culture that prized pricier, fussier dishes—often American or European—over the simpler fare of her Trinidadian childhood (“The bouillabaisse I learned to prepare... could never dethrone buljol, a salted cod dish and relic from the transatlantic slave trade”). She was struck, she writes, at how many instructors mistook cruelty for rigor, though she acknowledges the humiliation was sometimes effective. She’s less forgiving of the disparity between the school’s hefty price tag—tuition, fees, room and board “might skirt six figures”—and the fact that graduates often ended up “making substantially less money in a year than the cumulative debt they incurred.” Washington successfully mines her experience to challenge some of the culinary industry’s excesses, while allowing her love for cooking and the history, culture, and technique that shapes it to shine through. Industry insiders and home cooks alike will be riveted. (Apr.)