The Dark Side of Catering

Any part of the food industry has a dark side.Restaurants are notorious for it.Now, without any surprise the seaminess of catering is coming through. It's not what  people imagine of just putting food in front of people. It's a lot of quick thinking and even quicker cooking.

Kim Severson wrote about this world in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Most of the inside scoops comes from the Lee Brothers, Ted and Matt who usually write cookbooks and at one time had a food of the month club. This new foray is entitled Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business (Henry Holt and Company 2019). It is full of revelations, turning out to be a cut throat world that crosses into the A list world of celebrities and billionaires. The industry didn't start out this way. Back in the early 1960's catering was simple. It started with Jean Claude Nedelec who developed the most important invention of cooking - the hot box system. Those are those towers on wheels that hold those many trays of many dinners. It changed the industry completely. Catering expanded in the Seventies and fit the glamourous and gluttonous lifestyles of the Eighties. Any place , from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to The Battery could be turned into an eatery. Institutions like the Metropolitan Opera realized it could make more money renting itself out for catering events.Caterers then grew into event planners.

It wasn't and not as fun as it sounds. The Nineties brought fussier customers wanting better food and celebrity chefs cooking it. Chefs like Daniel Boulud jumped in which didn't work. Cooking for a crowd and cooking for a few are two different worlds. Bobby Flay, had often said that his catering time was the worst time of his life. Now in this Instagram age , food has to not only taste good but look as photogenic as possible. Meringues now float under balloons while waiters pedal around raw bars in bicycle baskets.Caterers have to one up each other in this crazy creativity. Then there is the headache of customized events such as weddings. Couples have very definitive idea of what they want and hand their caterers elaborate lists of foods. Then there is the problem of allergies. There are so many that can put a damper on a caterer's ideas. There are too many special requests which can ruin the assembly line nature of catering. Waiters are barraged with all sorts of questions from is there dairy with the vegan option or is there soy or nuts in the dish.At least some caterers are well prepared for this, coming with soy free dressings and sides, along with other options for the allergy inflicted.

Catering is a hard job. It is fascinating though, with its' stories of survival and triumph. Read the Lee's take on the industry and be taken in by it.