Rustic Cuisine and Gabrielle Hamilton of Prune
Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef /owner of Prune in NYC, and one of the featured chefs on The Mind of the Chef on PBS (and which is now showing in some territories on Netflix), who writes for The New York Times, and author of the book, Blood, Bones, and Butter, is a compelling figure, both personally and professionally; her menu at Prune is a window into her philosophy: hearty, simple, but elevated.
The American daughter of a French mother with a former Italian mother-in-law — both of whom influenced her value of simple, rustic cooking — is no stranger to wood-fired stoves, sweetbreads, and rustic cuisine; she is the embodiment of someone who started from the ground-up, and whose work ethic demanded a no-nonsense philosophy. The good always seems effortless; but the soul is always there, and it is indelible.
Like other depictions of chefs in The Mind of the Chef, Hamilton is shown cooking among those who have provided inspiration; her belief that “people chase novelty like glitter” and that staying true to tradition is timeless, is something many chefs — as well as many with no capacity for creating such cuisine, but can appreciate it and learn something of value — proves that the “true” lasts, is simple, hearty, good…and, in more ways than one, ultimately nourishing.
K.J. Wetherholt is the Publisher/Executive Editor of MIPJ, Humanitas Media Publishing, and Humanitas: The Necessity of Modern Humanism. She currently also writes about war and humanity, having published a book about war correspondents on the Western Front during WWI, The Illumination: A Novel of the Great War. Her next book, Compendium: Vol. 1, articles from 2009–2017, will be published later this year.
