A01=Ellen T. Meiser
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Alaska
Anchorage
Author_Ellen T. Meiser
automatic-update
bar
cafe
career
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JBCC4
Category=JFCV
Category=KCF
Category=KNA
Category=KNS
Category=WB
chef
commercial kitchen
COP=United States
culinary arts
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
diner
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_food-drink
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
labor
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€20 to €50
promotion
PS=Active
restaurant
service industry
softlaunch
success
work
Product details
- ISBN 9781978840126
- Weight: 367g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 11 Oct 2024
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
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 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.
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.
