Chefs, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: How Food Lovers, Free Spirits, Misfits, and Wanderers Created a New American Profession

In this enthusiastic history, food writer Friedman (Knives at Dawn) surveys the figures and institutions that powered the “transformation of American cooking” in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. Through the 1960s, Friedman writes, canned vegetables, McDonald’s, and TV dinners defined dining in America, with restaurant kitchens deemed the last refuge of dropouts and ex-cons. Then, he asserts, the countercultural upheaval behind draft dodging and Woodstock also inspired hippies to source local ingredients, while world travelers tried to recreate meals they experienced in France or Italy. Melded with the French nouvelle cuisine movement, these trends led thousands of young food enthusiasts to embrace cooking as a profession, a philosophy, and, not infrequently, a path to celebrity. Friedman follows a colorful assortment of these chefs—including David Bouley, Wolfgang Puck, and Alice Waters—as they defied a growing fast-food nation to create a headstrong new dining ethos that promoted chefs from being mere kitchen workers to achieving a new cultural prominence. Throughout, Friedman brings each chef to life: Charlie Palmer, for example, was “a broad-shouldered, Hemingway-esque former high school football player from the dairy community of Smyrna, New York,” who was terrified when he moved to New York City in the 1970s. Friedman’s passion for the subject infuses every anecdote, detail, and interview, making this culinary narrative an engrossing experience. (Feb.)