John McPhee's "Brigade de Cuisine" Retitled

Saul Steinberg, illustration for John McPhee's "Brigade de Cuisine"

I’m curious why newyorker.com changed the title of John McPhee’s classic “Brigade de Cuisine” (The New Yorker, February 19, 1979) to “A Philosopher in the Kitchen.” The original title perfectly encapsulates the piece’s main theme – the art of an extraordinary chef who does the work of an “entire brigade de cuisine.” The new title seems to express a different theme – the chef’s metaphysical approach to cooking. Except that in the case of this particular chef, when he’s really cruising, he doesn’t so much think as act by conditioned response (“ ‘You cook unconsciously,’ he says. ‘You know what you’re going to do and you do it. When problems come along, your brain spits out the answer’ ”). So much for metaphysics. This isn’t a think piece; the best parts describe action. For example: 

A quarter to eight, and the china is rattling. Pot lids are spinning on the floor. The oven is up to four-fifty. Otto is moving so fast his work has become a collage of itself, as—all in a minute—he pours out lime juice, eats a handful of seviche, tosses veal into a skillet, and hunts through wild mushrooms for deposits of grit. Chaos cannot get at him in the depths of composition. Those are finished compositions going out through the door—the mottled brown envelopes of pork loin, the drape-fold saucing of the poached quenelles. He is not only cooking. He works on all the levels of the kitchen. He sections the bread. He cuts and apportions desserts. He slices open the baked potatoes. “See. They are nice and flowery,” he says.

“Brigade de Cuisine” is exactly the right title for this bravura piece. It’s the title McPhee gave it when he first published it. It’s the title he used when he collected it in Giving Good Weight (1979). It’s the title its been known by for forty years. “A Philosopher in the Kitchen” – come on! Save that for a piece about Wittgenstein helping his mom make apple strudel.