Aside from a handful of columns, I’d never read Anthony Bourdain before. I suppose because I don’t like to cook myself, and kitchen stories stress me out, but this book is at the perfect crossroads of historical and medical for me as a reader.
I’ve also read the story of ‘Typhoid Mary’ and it always seemed so straightforward. Mary Mallon was a carrier of the deadly disease, infected dozens of people (many of whom died) and once she was diagnosed all she had to do was not prepare food to save lives. It seems simple. So why didn’t she?
Bourdain takes a look at Mary’s life from a cook’s point of view. He isn’t a trained historian or a medical professional, but he does know his way around the kitchen and knows what the grueling work is like.
Cooks are territorial creatures. No Serbian militia or feral dog defends its territory more fiercely, and seemingly unreasonably, than a cook protects his station. Mis-en-place, the general sense of things being the way they should be — of being ready for anything — extends only to the exit. Outside, it’s a strange and terrible place where things happen and don’t happen in unpredictable and unforeseeable ways. ~Pg. 3
This short book seeks to imagine Mary Mallon’s motives and reasoning — as a woman, as a cook, and as an immigrant. She was part of one of the waves of Irish immigrants who came to New York, when their own homeland offered little promise. Like many, Mary found herself with limited options and really just one marketable skill — service. That she worked her way in to run the kitchens of some of the finest Gilded Age homes is a testament to her talent. No wonder, then, it was unfathomable that she would give up the only professional worth she had — one that had earned her respect as well as money — simply because some random ‘experts’ told her she was sick when she felt perfectly fine.
Mary Mallon was not a revolutionary. But she was part of a revolution. She wasn’t that different from hundreds of thousands of other women who’d been cut loose from one oppressive system to make her way in another. She was unluckier than most — in that she was identified as carrying typhoid. But like many of her peers, she was a fighter, a scrounger, a hustler, and a hater. She wanted her piece of the American Dream and was all too willing to work for it. They just wouldn’t let her. ~Pg. 64
This is not a technical manual on infectious diseases, nor does it attempt to track down every moment of Mallon’s life. It’s a long essay that presents the situation and the players in hopes the reader can at least find a modicum of understanding in why each person acted as they did. Bourdain shows us that the case of Typhoid Mary was never so simple or straightforward after all.
My thanks to Bloomsbury for the review copy.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (October 15, 2024)
Language: English
Paperback: 160 pages
ISBN-10: 1639734694