That said, one can pay various amounts of money to disguise this carnal truth in clever ways. One can spend a pretty penny to pretend that actually living creatures have not been slaughtered for the feast, that living plants have not been torn from their roots to sustain your moral vessel. And the reason you tip your waiter is so that you don't have to enter the kitchen yourself.
The kitchen at Zemblanity is a riot of angry, desperate, animalistic carnage. I have heard that more sophisticated establishments employ what is called an "expeditor," who fuctions as an intermediary buffer between the frenzied world of cook and waiter. At Zemblanity, no such veil exists and the exchanges between the cook and waiter are raw and sound like the screams of warfare. They bellow at each other in cuss-heavy pirate tongues and there is a sense of impending murder lingering in the air like bacon grease. Twice, I had to alert the manager that a physical altercation was preparing to break out. I have seen actual pushing and shoving, actual violence. "Where's my motherfucking Icy Hot Chocolate you monkey's penis hole!!?" But when the food arrives at the table it's "And here is your food sir and madam. Please let me know if everything is to your satisfaction.
However, The morbidity of the kitchen is nothing compared to the dungeon. Like many restaurants in Manhattan, much of the kitchen is on the basement level to conserve real-estate. I call it the dungeon because that is how it looks and feels. The ceilings are only about six feet tall and dank, dripping pipes hang at about five feet. To walk around down there, you have to hunch down and squeeze through the cramped, ill-lit alleys of machines. The kitchen manager, Jim, says that over the years he has employed a number of military men, all of whom attest to the fact that Zemblanity's kitchen is more claustrophobic and dismal that one on a submarine. Like a submarine, the men who work in the dungeon never see the light of day during their shift in that miserable hole.
All of the people who work in the kitchen are men. A feminist might argue about inequality in the work place but in this case, the inequality is a blessing for the fairer sex. No woman, or human person for that matter, should have to work in that bleak prison. Furthermore, most of the men that work down there are Africans. There is still screaming but it is in African languages that I do not understand. I get the gist though. Ostensibly, this situation is due to the fact that the English of these men is too broken to work on the floor. But the racial implications of this arrangement make a white, middle class, suburban-bred dude like myself very uncomfortable.
One time, I ventured down into this primordial pit to fetch some rags and witnessed something beautiful and heartbreaking. Amongst the vats of boiling chicken, chopping blocks, dangling pots and ladles, enormous freezers, fiery ovens, way back amongst the steaming hot dish washing machines... I saw Abdul when he thought no one was watching. He is a bus boy from Bangladesh, much further from home than myself. I heard Abdul, very quietly and sweetly, singing a song from home in Bengali.
And two floors up, the south room sings Happy Birthday to an eight year old girl as she is presented with a flowery sundae with a candle in it. And two floors up, the PR director of Zemblanity plots the next publicity stunt in the quiet office. And up the crooked, warped and slumping staircase to the fifth floor, a very old woman hangs a wreath upon the front door of her apartment. It is the only apartment in the five story building. None of the employees at Zemblanity seem to know the old woman's name.
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