Jed Hilton and Robin Burrow - Suffering, Respect, and Identity in High End Kitchens

The world and workplaces of high end kitchens have become increasingly visible to the public in recent years and with this, greater scrutiny. This opening of the working practices and social pressures placed upon high end chefs is at the heart of various disciplines across business and organisation studies, food studies, and anthropology. How do we account for and explain the opportunities, pressures, and controversies that chefs are placed at the heart of within this broadening dynamic between chefs, the media, and their public? This is a question which covers many of the pressing concerns that the hospitality industry and leading chefs have to navigate today. From issues surrounding workplace practices and bullying, to notions of sustainability and confronting the “ethics” of food production and consumption, chefs confront an ever-expanding array of issues that complicate the nature of their work and professional identities.

This seminar brings together two researchers who have conducted research into the working habits and practices of elite kitchens in the UK. Dr. Robin Burrow (University of Cardiff) examines the significance of “suffering” as a process of embodied identity construction for high end chefs. His work draws upon qualitative interviews of chefs employed within elite kitchens across the world. His research proposes that we rethink the negative connotations of workplace suffering and, instead, suggests that suffering is a powerful aesthetic marker which distinguishes “good” chefs. Through this theorisation, his work focuses upon how occupational identities can be formed in and through embodied suffering. Jed Hilton (University of Exeter) draws upon a similar theorisation of the aesthetic ideals of what a good chef is and does. His work is the result of ethnographic research and qualitative interviews of UK chefs conducted for his doctoral thesis. He roots the aesthetic ideals high end chefs embody into the concept of “respect”. His work will show how various notions of respect are (re)produced within high end kitchens as a means by which chefs understand and engage with ethical discourses. His work will explore how paying respect to ingredient, food producer, one’s craft, and the environment is a powerful culinary discourse where ethics and aesthetics meet.

Combined, Robin and Jed’s work will show how the taken-for-granted aesthetic ideals of high end kitchens are useful tools for understanding how chefs confront the challenging environments they find themselves in.