Before the democratizing chaos of the Internet; before the rise of scruffy Greenmarket chic; and before upstart, kitchen anarchists like April Bloomfield and David Chang came along, aspiring chefs followed a settled, almost monastic road to the top of their profession. As young acolytes (most of them men, most of them European), they studied the ancient cooking texts of Carême, Escoffier, and Child. They did penance as kitchen slaves in restaurants around Europe and, if they survived these trials, many of them came to New York, where they worked their way slowly up the ranks at gourmet temples like Le Cirque, La Caravelle, and La Côte Basque. If they learned their lessons well, they’d attain the coveted titles of sous-chef or chef de cuisine, and in due course (after a decade or two), they might open their own little temple to la grande cuisine. There, they’d indoctrinate new acolytes to the calling and turn out the same catalogue of sacred recipes (duck magret, clams Cassino, crème brûlée), which they had trained all their devout lives to do.
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