In his book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" Anthony Bourdain writes that a chef will hold the "well-done" customer in contempt for "destroying his fine food." He said it's a time-honored tradition to pass off a "tough, slightly skanky cut of sirloin that's been pushed repeatedly to the back of the pile" on "some rube who prefers to eat his meat or fish incinerated into a flavorless, leathery hunk of carbon, who won't be able to tell if what he's eating is food or flotsam."
He also writes that when he worked in New York City's Rainbow Room, if someone ordered their chateaubriand (beef tenderloin for two) served well-done, it was thrown into the deep-fryer until crisp, "Then tossed into an oven to incinerate further until pick- up."
(Deseret News)
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