Compelling chaos, delectable dishes, or why I love ‘The Bear’
It is the restaurant setting, with tempers as volatile as kitchen flames and a tragedy of a family working in such competitive, unforgiving conditions that will keep you at the edge of your seat in every episode.
The third season of The Bear just dropped, but no fear—there are no spoilers here. I’m writing about the first two seasons, which you’ve probably already watched if you’re a fan.
The Bear is the most stressful series I’ve ever watched, revolving around the highly anxiety-provoking theme of running a family restaurant when that family is dysfunctional.
From the very first episode, when the lead character, chef Carmi (Jeremy Allen White) wakes up in a sweat from a nightmare where he is letting a bear out of its cage, you will wonder how this show was classified a comedy. I was looking for something along the lines of Murders Only in the House but The Bear is so much more compelling and yes, it does have its humorous moments.
I was immediately drawn to the show when I learned it was about a restaurant, and that translates to “food show” for me. And yes, I cooked my way through all the dishes featured in the show’s first two seasons. They are a delight, familiar, and yet new. But it is the restaurant setting, with tempers as volatile as kitchen flames and a tragedy of a family working in such competitive, unforgiving conditions that will keep you at the edge of your seat in every episode.
To begin with, Carmi comes into the family’s failing sandwich shop after his charismatic brother Mikey commits suicide. A highly skilled chef de cuisine, he rebuffs the idea of selling this disorganized, messy joint with its directionless crew. Instead, he wants to make it work, as if putting the restaurant to right will somehow heal the painful pieces of his dysfunctional family’s past. And all the while there are images of roast beef in various stages of prep—this is, after all, The Original Beef of Chicagoland, an institution in this city.
To make my home version I rubbed a piece of brisket (other cuts used for roast beef not as easy to find here) with rock salt and crushed peppercorns, pan-seared it then braised it with carrots, celery, onion, and beef stock in my Dutch oven till it was fork-tender, then strained the juices and added a roux of butter and flour to make my gravy.
To serve this as a classic beef sandwich you thinly slice up the meat and skip making gravy. Use a dense bread roll (like Village Gourmet, available in most supermarkets) and top the beef and juices with sautéed sliced bell peppers.
The first time we meet Carmi’s deceased brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal), he is in the kitchen with his siblings and cousin Ritchie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) layering thinly sliced meat with prosciutto, cheese and breadcrumbs. I am instantly reliving the years when my mom would ask me to make veal birds out of an old Gourmet cookbook. I am right, that is exactly what they are making, for the episode’s title “Braciole” is the Italian name for veal birds when made in the area of Naples—where many Italian immigrants to the US come from. And a family pasta sauce that Carmi is originally loath to prepare involving cloves of garlic and basil steeping in olive oil before being combined with canned tomatoes leads to a big turn in their family fortunes.
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Preparing chicken piccata, the mom’s recipe (she is played by the amazing Jamie Lee Curtis) is as simple as seasoning thinly pounded chicken breasts with salt and pepper, dredging them in flour and browning them in olive oil. The chicken is removed and then finely minced garlic and onion, lemon slices, and capers are cooked in the same pan, deglazed with chicken stock or white wine, and thickened with butter. Pour the sauce over the chicken. The flavor is delicately delicious and belies the drama of its supposed creator.
The Bear resonates with me because it too realistically portrays the lives of its characters, their shortcomings and hardheadedness, their stumbling, and the major disasters of their own making—yet there are also the chances to move on, improve and redeem themselves. Never too late to start again for me is its motto as strongly as “Every second counts.” We cannot erase what has happened in our past and what family does not have some degree of dysfunction, craziness, and tragedy in it?
Yet we can never cut fully ourselves off from the family we were born into. In the case of The Bear’s Berzatto clan, the very people who provided all the hurt are also the source of true healing.
In Season 2’s sixth episode “The Fishes,” I can barely make out the seven seafood recipes Donna Berzatto is preparing for the family’s Christmas dinner, only knowing there is lobster, shellfish, roasted peppers, artichokes and branzino, a kind of sea bass.
But it’s interesting to see that on the opening night of the new restaurant, Carmi includes a sophisticated rendering of seven fishes as well as cannoli, two dishes he has dreaded ever since that disastrous Christmas meal. He is using food to help heal himself of his past, and that’s definitely something I can identify with.
Luscious food scenes and lovely settings (Copenhagen) are the focal point of the second season where chefs Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), as well as restaurant frontman Ritchie take stints at top restaurants and cooking schools to hone their skills. Much more than techniques are refined—goals are defined, attitudes realigned, and the restaurant’s future is designed.
I came away from The Bear with more than just a series of delicious family meals and recipes I want to teach in class. What matters more is a mix of ingredients—hope, inspiration, faith—that for every failed ravioli there is a chance to make it again, to improve. Life is ever difficult yet ever rewarding, with opportunities as varied as those mouthwatering doughnuts that fill Marcus’s dreams.
Yes, the darker themes of mental illness and addiction run throughout The Bear, yet there is sweetness and tenderness there, just as the fierceness of a bear belies the desperate need she feels to defend and protect her young.